New AJ, Same As The Old AJ

Back on April 30th, A.J. Burnett was sporting a nifty 2.43 ERA and had picked up three wins in his first five starts. After a dominant outing against the Orioles he talked about learning to pitch to contact, so we asked if he had altered his approach:

Traditionally a guy with a propensity to both strikeout and walk a lot of batters, A.J. has seen both of those rates drop to roughly 2/3 of their career norms. At the same time, he's given up more hits, is throwing slightly more strikes and is getting more outs on the ground.

About 3/4 of the pitches Burnett has thrown in 2010 have been fastballs, a proportion that he hasn't approached since his days with the Marlins.

Despite discovering his curveball somewhere along the way and tossing 7 1/3 strong innings his next time out, in his nine starts since then, Burnett's ERA is 5.50 and his record is 3-5. He's had four starts in which he's surrendered more than six runs, while in his first five outings the most he allowed in any outing was four.

A.J.'s still throwing over 70% fastballs, about 60% of all his pitches for strikes, inducing ground balls and allowing line drives at roughly the same rates (just under 50% and around 17%, respectively). So what has the difference been? Let's take a look at his rate stats:

Burnett's strikeout and walk rates have unsurprisingly returned close to his career norms and a slightly higher BABIP has led to an increase in hits per nine. But even all of those things in conjunction shouldn't cause his ERA to more than double. The real culprits (highlighted in red on the chart) are his home run and strand rates.

In 31 1/3 innings at the beginning of the season, Burnett had allowed just one long ball. In the 54 innings he's pitched since then, he's given up nine of them. To put it another way, he gave up home runs almost six times more often during his last nine starts than he did in his first five.

The league average stand rate is 72%. Burnett was very fortunate in that department early in the season but has been rather unlucky since. Of course, the fact that runners have stolen 19 bases off him and only been caught three times certainly isn't helping in that department.

Clearly, Burnett hasn't pitched as well since the beginning of May as he did before that. Home runs involve a certain amount of luck but a six-fold increase tells us that Burnett has been leaving plenty more balls out over the plate and hitters have been capitalizing on his mistakes. His strand rate has also been dragged down by all those long balls as well.

At the risk of stating the obvious, Burnett caught a lot of breaks early in April and saw his luck even out in a major way in the past month and a half. His home run rate won't stay as high as it has been and his strand rate will regress towards league average as the season continues. If you look at his expected FIP (based on batted ball types allowed) on FanGraphs, it's just about the same during his great stretch as it is throughout his awful one.

It's boring to say, and again this is pretty self-evident, but the true A.J. Burnett lies somewhere between the Cy Young candidate that showed up in April and the replacement level scrub that has been serving up 'tater salad since then. If he can lean just a little towards the former from here on in, he and the Yankees will be just fine.

Game 32: So Hard To Find My Way

They say it's hard to win a four game series. They also say that it's hard to sweep a double header. If the Yankees want to give themselves a chance to do the former tomorrow, they'll have to pull off the latter today.

On the mound for the Tigers is Fack Youk Hall of Famer Rick Porcello, who is still the youngest player in the American League. When he wasn't throwing a charging Kevin Youkilis to the ground last year, the New Jersey native was on his way to throwing 170 innings to a 3.96 ERA.

Porcello struck out 89 batters over that span in 2009, a rate of just 4.7 per nine innings (the 10th lowest in the Majors among pitchers with 150 or more innings). He also had a relatively high HR/FB rate (14.1%) but managed to keep his ERA down with a low BABIP of .281 and by getting very stingy (and/or lucky) in high leverage situations.

This year, last two trends have totally reversed. Porcello is getting pounded when the stakes are at their highest and has allowed a .396 BABIP in his first 30 innings. Not coincidentally, despite having similar strikeout and walk rates and a lower HR/FB (9.1%) in 2010, the kid is holding a 7.50 ERA after six starts.

As we've explored in the past, Vazquez has had his own difficulties in high leverage situations and this year has been no different. Opponents have hit .333/.389/.733 off Javy in the 18 most important plate appearances (based on Leverage Index) that he's had this season - a big part of the reason that his ERA is an unseemly 9.78 after five outings. A ridiculous 22.2% of his fly balls have gone for home runs this year, nearly double his career rate, and he's managed to strand just 62.5% of baserunners, down from his overall mark of 70.7%.

Of course, batted ball statistics and strand rates aren't solely based on luck. Unlike Porcello, who has been largely consistent from this year to last, Javy has been throwing with less velocity (two miles an hour slower) and less command, walking more than three times as many batters as he did in '09. In other words, he has to improve the way he's pitching, not just wait for probability to even things out.

Vazquez was skipped last time through the rotation so that he could work on his mechanics and as he admitted, also to help him mentally. Of course, those two things are very much intertwined. Feeling uncomfortable on the mound can lead to a pitcher's motion getting out of whack, which can cause his pitches to miss their locations, which can lead to bad results, which can further drain his confidence, etc, etc, etc.

Hopefully Javy's extra side sessions and time off did him good. The break had the same intended purpose that basketball coaches have when they call time out to slow down a run by the opposing team: to stem the tide and allow the players to collect themselves. I don't know if it really works or not but every coach seems to do it.

Vazquez will have a big ballpark behind him this afternoon and he'll be a long way from the Bronx. His only decent start of the season came under similar conditions in Oakland, so today seems like as good of a time as any for Javy to finally rediscover his groove.

You can say what you want,
You can do what you do,
But sometimes some things are chosen for you,
The life that you want and the life that you’ve been given,
Are sometimes not even the life you’ve been living.

[Song Notes: Jackie Greene has toured with Phil Lesh and Friends, Bob Weir & Ratdog, Susan Tedeschi, Buddy Guy, B.B. King and played a run of shows with Gov't Mule in 2009. I first heard him play this tune at a Phil show and have been a fan ever since.

Apparently he's a big baseball fan as well and took some time last November to write about a connection that we make pretty much every day:

I’ve noticed a lot of similarities between baseball and music. Baseball is a game of failure, it’s been said. Music is kind of the same way. I figure, writing a song is a lot like hitting. They say you have to write a bunch of bad songs before you get a good one.

Seems to me, it’s like hitting. If you can write 3 good songs for every 10, you’re doing pretty damn good. It sort of works for albums too: If there are 3 hits on a 10 song record…. (hey, we even call them “hits”)…Wow!! If there are 4 hits on a 10 song record…..that’s like a Ted Williams album cycle right there!! (Who was the last recording artist to hit over .400?)

Bob Dylan’s lifetime musical batting average is probably .390. He’s like the Ty Cobb of songwriting. Some say he’s just as much of an asshole too. Go figure.]

-Lineups-

Yankees:
The lineup remains the same as it would have been had they played last night. A-Rod DH's with Ramiro Pena at third. Brett Gardner moves back into the two spot, with Nick Swisher dropped to seventh.

Right now, it appears that the roster move entails Greg Golson replacing Alfredo Aceves. Golson is listed on the roster, and since it's been less than ten days since his demotion, he has to be added in place of a DL'd player. That said, I'm not sure I understand this move. The concerns entering the day were bullpen depth and left-handed DH. This addresses neither. Golson provides outfield depth that is needless with Kevin Russo still on the roster.

Juan Miranda remains in Detroit and may be activated between games. If not him, Jonathan Albaladejo is allegedly on standby in the event the bullpen is overused in the first game. That would seem to indicate that one way or the other, Golson is leaving town after the first game. He might even make to Columbus in time for the back end of Scranton's doubleheader tonight. I'm sure they could use him; the combination of the weather and the injuries for the big club is wreaking havoc on Scranton's roster. [UPDATE 1:05 PM: Girardi says Golson is staying for both games, so just disregard all that I suppose]

Jeter SS
Gardner CF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez DH
Cano 2B
Posada C
Swisher RF
Winn LF
Pena 3B

Tigers:

Austin Jackson CF
Johnny Damon DH
Magglio Ordonez RF
Miguel Cabrera 1B
Brennan Boesch LF
Brandon Inge 3B
Ramon Santiago 2B
Gerald Laird C
Adam Everett SS

If It Wasn't For Bad Luck, D-Rob Wouldn't Have No Luck At All

Good morning Fackers. Entering play yesterday, the Yankees pitching was second in the AL at 3.56 R/G and third in ERA at 3.45. All that despite the well-documented problems with Javy Vazquez as well as some spotty relief work, particularly from David Robertson. In fact, as my friend and frequent commenter Gripp pointed out to me, Vazquez and DRob have combined to allow 38.9% of the Yankees earned runs while pitching just 12.5% of the innings.

There are any number of theories about Vazquez' troubles. Aside from speculation about his head and his guts, he's having noticeable mechanical issues. The numbers also suggest Vazquez has been a bit unlucky. Both his FIP (7.94) and xFIP (5.56) are ugly, but not nearly as ugly as his 9.78 ERA.

But Javy's bad luck has nothing on David Robertson. The New York Times' Bats Blog touched on it last week, and it's only gotten worse since then. Robertson has been knocked around in each of his last three appearances, allowing eight baserunners, two home runs, and six runs over just 1.2 IP. Opponents are hitting .545/.615/1.182 against him over that stretch. But it's not as bad as recent events would suggest.

On the season, Robertson sports a comical 14.21 ERA and 2.37 WHIP. His FIP is a still ugly 8.13, but his xFIP is a respectable 3.91. His peripherals are good. He's striking out 11.37 per 9, just a tick off from the 12.04 mark he posted through his first two seasons. He's walking 2.84 per 9, a major improvement on the 4.62 rate he had entering the year. His LD% is a career low 13.0%. So why have things gone so bad for DRob?

First, his HR/FB rate is currently at an unbelievable 33.3%, as three of the nine flyballs he's allowed have gone over the fence. When he's kept the ball in the yard he hasn't had much better luck, as his BABIP sits at a lofty .504. His strand rate is an absurdly low 50.9%. A third of his flyballs are leaving the park. Half of his balls in play are turning into hits. Half of the runners he allows to reach base come around to score. That's a recipe for disaster, and a disaster it has been. It's also a recipe for a big time regression to the mean, and with any luck that'll be coming very soon.

Compounding the problems for Robertson has been his sparing and sporadic use. Of his nine appearances this year, seven have lasted less than an inning, including his last four in a row. Three of them have been six pitches or fewer. Four of his appearances have come on three days rest. One came on a full week's rest. He hasn't been pitching often, and when he has, he hasn't stuck around for long. He's thrown just 2.1 innings in the last three weeks. Part of that is a function of his own ineffectiveness thus far, but much of it is due to the strong performance of the Yankee starters coupled with Joe Girardi's hair trigger tendencies with his middle relievers.

The good news is that Robertson's poor numbers have accumulated over just 6.1 IP. It's an extremely small sample size. His HR/FB rate, BABIP, and strand rate are beyond unsustainable. As they correct themselves and as Robertson accumulates more IP, the results will straighten themselves out. Further, his K rate remains amongst the best in baseball and he's made improvements in his walk rate and LD%. Of course these metrics are also subject to small sample size caveats, but whereas the bad numbers are so bad that they can't possibly last over time, the good numbers aren't so good as to be unbelievable.

Depending upon what the Yankees choose to do with the Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte injuries, the team could find themselves in need of a roster spot in the coming days. Robertson is one of the few players who both has options and isn't too indispensable to consider sending down. That, combined with Robertson's poor performance thus far, could land Robertson on a bus to Scranton. While he would certainly benefit from regular use and perhaps from the confidence that would come with getting back on track, I don't think there's anything wrong with David Robertson that can't be worked out on the Major League level. I wish Joe Girardi would stop using him as a sporadic ROOGY; his results are overdue for a nice turnaround.

24 Days Until Spring Training: Robinson Cano

Robinson Cano isn't young for a baseball player anymore. He seems like a bit of a fledgling in comparison to the rest of the established stars on the Yankees but he turned 27 last October and is now entering his physical prime. Cano is slated to make $9M in 2010, so he is becoming less of an automatic bargain and more of a good value contingent on good performance.

With the departures of Melky Cabrera and Chein-Ming Wang this offseason, Cano alone now bridges the gap of home grown talent between the old guard of Jeter, Rivera, Posada and Pettitte and the newer generation of Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Brett Gardner. He's the only outstanding hitting prospect the Yankees have developed and retained in recent years and provides elite production at an important defensive position.

Cano's abilities at second base are tough to quantify, as Joe from River Ave. Blue pointed out before last season began. He possesses the ability to make plays on balls that are hit outside of his zone, but is also prone to making sloppy mistakes on relatively easy opportunities. UZR rated Cano as slightly below average last season (-5.2) which is close to his career norm. Fortunately, Robby hits more than enough to make up for any deficiencies he might have in the field.

After a terrible year at the plate in 2008, Cano rebounded last season with a .370 wOBA, the second best mark of his career. He set new career highs in home runs (25), doubles (48) and ISO (.199) without adversely affecting his batting average (.320). He batted significantly better at Yankee Stadium than on the road, but hit a fairly balanced 14 of his homers in the Bronx.

Cano's only real flaw as a hitter is his lack of patience, an attribute which is exacerbated by the fact that he is near the top of the league in contact percentage - both inside and outside of the strike zone. He made contact with 77% of offerings outside of the zone in 2009, a number which has increased every year he's been in the league. The percentage of pitches out of the zone he offers at has remained close to 30%, meaning that he's either getting more selective, getting better at putting the bat on the ball or some combination of the two.

Robby is also near the top of the league in first strike percentage, despite the fact that he only swings at the first pitch of the at bat 34% of the time. It's easy to understand why Cano or the coaching staff might take this tact - he's already near the bottom of the league in pitches seen per plate appearance - but it appears that pitchers are a little too comfortable grooving a strike in there and putting Cano in an unfavorable count. Clearly opposing hurlers are trying to exploit this tendency and Cano could benefit by being more aggressive on the first pitch.

As has been the case throughout his career, Cano struggled with runners in scoring position in 2009. Mike from River Ave. Blues identified BABIP as a major culprit for the discrepancy but clearly there is something in his approach that keeps him from racking up more RBIs. Similarly, Cano didn't fare very well in the 2009 postseason either, hitting a paltry .193/.266/.281 surpassed in futility on the Yankees only by Nick Swisher. But all's well that ends well.

Cano is probably my favorite Yankee. During a time when the farm system wasn't turning out many prospects, Robby emerged to fill a position that the Yankees have had very few stars at over the course of their history. He has plenty of flaws as a player, some of which we didn't even discuss, but those make Cano who he is.

Dissecting The DH Signings

So far this offseason, free-swinging goat roaster Vladimir Guerrero, World Series Hero and spousal sketch artist Hideki Matsui, and injury-prone on-base messiah Nick Johnson have all been signed as DHs for elite offensive teams.

According to the Dallas News Vlad's deal is for $5M with incentives making comparable to the $5.5M deal Johnson got from the Yankees and the $6M one Matsui received from the Angels. Johnson's contract includes bonuses for every 25 plate appearances over 400 and mutual option or buyout for 2011, giving it the largest possible value of the three. But for this coming year, the values are likely to be quite similar.

While Johnson is more than 5 years younger than either Matsui or Guerrero, he carries similar risk of injury, having spent far more than his fair share of time on the DL over the course of his career. Johnson may be capable of playing first base and Matsui may want to play the outfield, but all three figure to DH almost exclusively in 2010.

Offensively, each has a unique profile. By getting on base at a .400 clip, Johnson offers something much different than either of the other two aging sluggers, but when healthy each provides similar overall value to a lineup.

The biggest difference between Matsui and Guerrero is that Matsui is coming off one of the best years of his career (not to mention the World Series MVP), while Vlad just completed one of his worst, both in terms of games played and at bat for at bat production. Johnson, meanwhile, came to the plate 574 times, the second most in his career and got on base quite often, but his slugging percentage was the lowest of the three.

However, the Yankees would gladly trade points in SLG for OBP considering he's going to be hitting in front of Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez. Matsui and Guerrero are going to hit more towards the middle of the order and their higher slugging percentages will be more useful in driving in runs. In terms of a fit for the line up, it seems that Johnson and the Yankees are a perfect match.

So between Matsui and Guerrero, who figures to provide more value for their team next year?

The chart below shows Vlad's numbers since he came to Anaheim back in 2004 (darker numbers are better).

While it hasn't been an even decline across the board, it's easy to see that he's fallen a long way in every category listed above in the last six years. Conversely, Matsui's 2009 line (.274/.367/.509) was very similar to his career marks (.292/.370/.482) with the exception of his batting average being slightly lower and his slugging percentage slightly higher. While Guerrero is still (supposedly) younger than Matsui and had a higher, longer career peak, it seems as though Vlad is further into his decline phase.

Plate discipline has a way insulating a batter from the effects of aging and that is one category Matsui owns Vlad in. Vlad walked in only 4.7% of his plate appearances last year, the lowest of his career, while Matsui walked in 12.3%, sightly above his career average.

Was luck a factor? Matsui had a BABIP of .275, which was .23 lower than his career mark. Guerrero was down slightly to .314 from his mean of .322. Vlad hit more fly balls in 2009 than in previous years, particularly infield fly balls. His line drive percentage was actually up last year, but he saw a dive in his HR/FB rate (-4.6%). Matsui had the same underlying factors ( increases in FB, IFFB, LD%), but his HR/FB rate nearly doubled to 17.9%. You can chalk some of the difference up to the New Yankee Stadium, but it appears he was fortunate with his results as well.

In 2010, Matsui will be moving to a less favorable hitter's park while Vlad will be moving to a more favorable one. As Jack Moore points out over at FanGraphs today, Vlad has excellent numbers at the Ballpark in Arlington, but "the data from the last few years in Anaheim far outweighs the fact that he’s killed the Rangers at home over the last six."

If I were a GM, I would be worried about Vlad's slow downward spiral over the past couple of years. While he had a higher, more sustained peak than Matsui, he seems to be more susceptible to the aging process than Godzilla. His bat speed has already started to leave him and the results have not been good. This isn't to say that Matsui is a sure bet either with his balky knees and all, but his patient approach at the plate and solid production last year seem to make him a better value in 2010.

Everybody Do The Link Around

The Yankeeist has an interview with Alex Belth and Cliff Corcoran from Bronx Banter. It delves into the very beginnings of the Yankee blogosphere and gives some insight into the Banter Crew that you can't find anywhere else.

Big League Stew takes an in-depth look at BABIP.

A victory for potheads and statheads alike: Tim Lincecum wins the NL Cy Young.

Joe Posnanski hands out his special brand of anti-awards for managers, pitchers and the least valuable player in each league.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but Jason Bay is headed for pure, unadulterated free agency.

It doesn't much matter but Andy Pettitte finally filed his papers and is headed there as well.

Bud Selig says "some teams lost money" last year. He could have just said "the Tigers".

The Shyster breaks out a secondhand story about the corporate culture at GM as a way of explaining that Bud Selig might be trying to cut the fat out of the playoff schedule but he's the reason it's there to begin with.

This is why Ken Rosenthal gets paid the big bucks:

The [Yankees], according to one rival executive, plans to pursue free-agent relievers Rafael Soriano, a right-hander, and Mike Gonzalez, a lefty. The Yankees have liked both pitchers in the past.

However, another source with knowledge of the Yankees' thinking says the team prefers to address any bullpen holes from within, using the same strategy that they employed successfully last season.

He gives precedence to a quote from a "rival executive" over a "source with knowledge of the Yankees' thinking". How could you possibly justify citing an executive for another team when someone who knows what the Yanks are thinking offers a directly contradictory quote? Because Rosenthal knows that linking the Yankees - however tangentially - to free agents unequivocally equals pageviews. And that's what business aboard the internets is all about.

Just for good measure, let's take a look at how every pitcher who threw more than 10 innings out of the bullpen for the Yankees in 2009 was acquired.

• Mariano Rivera (international free agent)
• Phil Hughes (drafted - 2004)
• Alfredo Aceves (international free agent)
• David Robertson (drafted - 2006)
• Brian Bruney (signed as a free agent, assigned to the minors)
• Phil Coke (drafted - 2002)
• Damaso Marte (trade)
• Mark Melancon (drafted - 2006)
• Jonathan Albaladejo (trade)
• Edwar Ramirez (purchased from an independent league team)
• Chad Gaudin (trade)
• Jose Veras (free agent, assigned to minors)
• Sergio Mitre (free agent, assigned to minors)
• Brett Tomko (free agent, assigned to minors)

The only guys in there that were signed to multi-million dollar free agent deals were Mariano Rivera (who they were never going to let walk) and Damaso Marte who they locked up while they still had exclusive negotiating rights with last year. It's clear what the Yankees philosophy for their bullpen is and it doesn't involve acquiring expensive free agent relief pitchers like Soriano and Gonzalez.

/end rant

Now make like the NL Cy Young winner and, in the words of Ray Charles, go get stoned.

Godzilla Against Southpaws

Good morning, Fackers. Thanks largely Hideki Matsui's continued success against lefthanded pitchers, the Yankees celebrated yet another walk off victory last night. They needed it to stay 6.5 games up on the Red Sox who had some heroics of their own, scoring two in both the bottom of the 8th and 9th, en route to beating the Angels 9-8. However, the Angels' loss means that they Yanks are now 7 games up on the Halos for homefield advantage.

Back to the Yanks, though. Sure, Chad Gaudin put together a solid effort and Frankie Cervelli got the pie, but had Joe Girardi chose to sit Matsui like he did his other power hitting lefty, Johnny Damon, the Yanks might not have been within striking distance when the bottom of the ninth came around.

Hideki started early, as he drove in a run off of lefthanded starter Brian Tallet with a single to put the Yanks up 2-0 in the first inning. He also chipped in late, during cruch time, with the biggest hit of the game in terms of WPA, a game-tying, two run homer in the eighth inning off of lefty reliever Scott Downs.

Amazingly, 12 of Matsui's 25 home runs this season have come against southpaws despite having less than 1/3 of his plate appearances against them. He's averaging a home run in every 11.6 PAs against lefties (which would be good for 51 HRs/600PA) but only every 26.1 PAs against righties (23/600). Matsui has a pretty even platoon split over his career (including HR/PA), but this year, what he lacks in BA and OBP against lefties, he's making up for with long balls, now slugging a truly Godzillian .610.

Is this a product of the New Yankee Stadium? Eight of his 12 dingers off lefties have come at home and all of them have gone out to right or right-centerfield. His BB/K ratio against lefties is down at home, meaning he might be trying to swing for the fences more often.

He also has an even home/road split, which means that only 5 of his longballs against righties have come at TNYS. This seems to be a symptom of the rare but deadly Reverse Inverted Nick Swisheritis.

Is there some luck involved? It's baseball, isn't there always? Sixteen of his 21 doubles have come against righties and you would expect the doubles and home runs to even out on each side of the platoon split over time. His BABIP is lower against lefties too (.242/.291), but that's partially as a result of all the homers.

It seems a foregone conclusion that the Yankees will let Matsui walk at the end of the season and it's almost impossible to argue with that. They aren't going to plug up the DH spot with a guy who can no longer play the outfield. But perhaps a team like the Royals who have the lowest production out of their cleanup hitter in the majors by a staggering margin could use his help. Or perhaps he'll go back to Japan and continue to mash over there. Or maybe he'll just hang up his cleats for good.

Regardless, it's nice to see Matsui during his last our of duty make a graceful exit from the Bronx. He's been nothing short of dignified in his tenure here and it would have been terrible to see him exit with a bunch of strikeouts and errors. Credit goes to Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman who saved his knees by not letting him play the field, but most of all to Matsui who has played a crucial role in the Yankees resurgent offense this year.

Game 146: The Man's Too Strong

Tonight the Yankees begin their last series of the season against the Blue Jays, a quick two game set in the Bronx. The Yanks lead the season tilt 11-5, winning every series against Toronto save for a 4 game split the last time they met.

Sergio Mitre and his 7.02 ERA will jump the bump for the Bombers this evening. After his brilliant one-hit outing against the White Sox was cut short by a line drive to his forearm, Mitre was rocked for his worst start of the year his last time out by the same team he'll be facing tonight.

The Serge was tagged for 9 runs in 4 1/3 IP and two more unearned came to the plate during that time. He struck out 5 and didn't give up any home runs, but the Yanks made three errors behind him and every ball the Jays hit seemed to find a hole. At the risk of jinxing the man, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this start can't possibly be as bad as his last one.

Going against the Yankees tonight will be the man that has given the most trouble as a starting pitcher since he has entered the league.

Starting with at the end of the non-waiver trade deadline, Roy Halladay didn't appear to be himself. During his six starts in August, opponents hit .316/.333/.526 against him including 8 home runs, his most in a single month since April of 2003. He gave up 22 earned runs in 42 innings and allowed another 5 unearned to that total. To the casual observer, it might have seemed like he had been thrown off of his game or had mentally given in after not being traded.

However, Doc's K/BB ratio was still a fantastic 7.20, and he had gotten quite unlucky in terms of BABIP (.354) and HR/FB% (14.4%). It should have come as much of a surprise then, that he has started off September with two vintage Halladay starts, a complete game shutout against the Yankees on the 4th and a complete game loss against the Twins on the 9th.

He's thrown 9 innings in three of his four starts against the Yanks this year but has just two wins to show for his efforts. In 34 career starts against them, he has more complete games (7) than he does losses (6). He haunts the Yankees like no other active pitcher and they're going to need to put forth a solid offensive effort to overcome the strength of Halladay.

And I can still hear his laughter,
And I can still hear his song,
The man's too big,
The man's too strong.

Yanks Slug Their Way To Another Victory

A.J. Burnett's sub-par August bled over into September last night but the Yankees' offense launched 5 home runs in his defense and the bullpen provided a scoreless 3 2/3 innings to allow the Yankees to take the victory in Camden Yards.

Three of those homers came off of long ball machine David Martinez, two of which were courtesy of Jorge Posada. He and A.J. Burnett clearly didn't combine for a very good outing as battery mates and Jorge twice forgot the count in his at bats. In the second inning he stood the plate waiting for a pitch after ball four was called, and then three innings later he started walking towards the dugout after strike two was called, only to return to the plate to take Hernandez yard two pitches later. He also was nicked with a foul ball in the eighth inning but told Kim Jones he was okay in the postgame interview.

Nick Swisher and Eric Hinkse went back to back in the 7th, the former breaking a 6-6 tie and the latter putting the Yanks up by 3, which turned out to be the decisive margin. Amazingly, Swisher has hit more homers at Camden Yards this year (4) than he has at Yankee Stadium. He was 13 round-trippers at Oriole Park, the most of any park he hasn't called home.

Damaso Marte was the first to come out of the bullpen, throwing a perfect inning spanning from the 6th to the 7th before being replaced by David Robertson. D-Rob is working his way up the bullpen ladder, and has been used more often in high leverage situations as of late. He didn't disappoint tonight, but was lifted after giving up a double to Brian Roberts in the 8th. Phil Coke closed out the frame and Mariano Rivera picked up his second save in as many days, giving him the Major League lead with 38.

I'm sure the Yankees would have preferred a better start from Burnett but the bottom line is that they got away with it. He gave up six runs in 5 1/3 IP, but a whopping 11 of the 25 balls hit in play against Burnett dropped for hits (.423 BABIP). Hopefully he was just unlucky once again. I wouldn't point to Posada's game calling this time around as the cause for the poor performance. It seemed as if they weren't on the same page again but even if that's true, Jorgie more than compensated for it with his bat.

The Red Sox beat the Rays tonight, and the Rangers topped the Blue Jays. With the Rays sitting six games back, it's starting to look more and more like the Wild Card will come down to the Rangers and Sox with 3.5 games currently separating them.

Game 132: Reelin' In The Years

The Yankees are probably sad to see August go. After winning two-thirds of their games in July (18-9), they took three-quarters of their games in August (21-7). If they carried out that .750 winning percentage through the entire season, it would top the 1998 team's record of 114-48 by almost 10 games. It was clearly and by far the Yankees' best month of the year as they expanded their lead in the division from 0.5 games to 6.5 helped greatly by going 6-1 against the Red Sox.

A.J. Burnett wasn't much help though. The Yankees lost 7 games in the month, and Burnett was on the hook for four of them including the 14-1 disaster against the Sox during which he gave up 9 runs.

Despite striking out more than one batter per inning and recording his highest K/BB, August was Burnett's worst month of this season, as he compiled an ERA over 6 and a WHIP of 1.473. Some of that may be explained by the fact that his BABIP was .337, whereas it had been below .300 in every other month this year and is .288 for his career. Nonetheless, his season ERA was 3.53 heading into his start on August 1st and now stands at 4.10.

It sounds pretty bad, but he really only had two poor starts out of six last month, one 7 run shelling against the White Sox on the 1st and the disaster against the Red Sox on the 22nd. Those were also his only two non-quality starts of his last 13 which include his great run through June and July with a 1.68 ERA and 6 wins in 8 outings.

The Orioles will send 24 year old right hander David Hernandez to the mound tonight. No, not this David Hernandez. He probably throws like a chick. According to his Wikipedia page, the David Hernandez the Yanks will be facing only got drafted by the Orioles because of the connections his father had within the organization. Seriously, check it out.

Hernandez is a fastball-slider-change up pitcher, who struck out 10.2 batters per nine innings in the minor leagues, but has only K'd about half that many in his 74 innings in the majors. He's got a bloated WHIP of 1.520, and K/BB of only 1.34 and has given up 14 HRs in 13 starts including 10 in the month of August. Despite those poor peripherals, Hernandez carries a 4.24 ERA. The Yanks have already seen him this year, and he held them to one run over 6 innings back on July 20th.

The Yanks head into September on a four game winning streak, as hot as they've been all year. The 5 call ups will walk into the clubhouse today and become a part of the best team in baseball for what figures to be an interesting month of baseball. Soon postseason berths will be clinched and teams will be officially eliminated. All that's gone on throughout the course of the year solidify and things start to fall into place.

September is a month of transition. August becomes October and the dog days become cool nights. You feel the energy and freedom of summer being inexorably pulled away and replaced with the chill and constraints of fall. No one wants to see summer end, but in baseball, that's what you look forward to all year.

Your everlasting summer,
You can see it fading fast.
So you grab a piece of something,
That you think is gonna last.

Well, you wouldn't know a diamond,
If you held it in your hand.
The things you think are precious,
I can't understand.

A Few Lines On Coke

I have to admit, it wasn't until all the Twitter feeds came pouring into yesterday's live chat that I realized just how bad Phil Coke has been of late: 17 ER over his last 15.1 IP. His ERA has ballooned from 2.97 to 5.05 in that stretch.

Some may want to blame this on his over-use, as his 59 appearances are the most on the team by a good margin (Rivera is next with 52), and his 51.2 IP in relief is third behind Alfredo Aceves (61) and Rivera (53). And maybe that has something to do with it, but not very much.

Most of what's happened to Coke over these last 20 outings is just good old statistical correction. As I've stated before, particularly when evaluating relievers, I prefer to look at Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) rather than ERA. As you may recall, FIP is dependent upon the three things pitchers can control: strikeouts, walks, and home runs, and is then is adjusted to an ERA-like scale.

Unfortunately, I can't find game-by-game logs of Coke's FIP, nor do I have the free time to calculate it at the moment. However, at every point this season that I looked at his numbers, his ERA was outperforming his FIP - by a lot. These past twenty outings have served to correct that gap, so much so that after yesterday, Coke's ERA (5.05) is now worse than his FIP (4.86).

So what's the good news/bad news here? The good news is that the numbers seem to indicate that Coke has at worst leveled off, at best is due for a small improvement. The bad news is that where those numbers stand right are not all that good. The good news is the Coke's strikeout (7.14 per 9) and walk (3.14 per 9) rates are slightly better than the league averages. The bad news is his home run rate (1.57 per 9) is a half home run worse than the league average, and that's what is killing both his FIP and his ERA.

Another number to look at is Coke's batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Evidence has shown that a pitcher has little control over balls in play (which is why FIP is a valuable statistic) and that most pitchers end up having a BABIP close to the league average. Currently, Coke is at .234, far better than the league average of .304. This could suggest that we haven't seen the bottom for Coke yet; if his BABIP regresses to the mean over the final five weeks he could be in for a few more rough outings.

However, given Coke's K and HR rates, I would expect his BABIP to be a bit low. His K rate is higher than the league average, meaning there are fewer balls in play against him. Furthermore, 6.1% of batted balls off Coke are home runs, as opposed to 4.0% for the league. As such, hitters are making contact less against him compared to the league, but when they do, the ball is traveling over the fence far more often. While the latter certainly isn't a good thing, I do think that indicates that Coke's BABIP likely won't get close to the league average by season's end. Besides, any BABIP regression to the mean may be a good thing for Coke, as it could indicate that his gigantic HR rate is dropping off a bit.

So what does it all mean? Phil Coke isn't as good as he appeared to be through most of the summer and isn't as bad as he appears to be right now. He gives up way too many home runs, and Yankee Stadium may have something to do with that (18.2 AB/HR at home, 25 on the road). If he can get his home runs down, his K and BB rates suggest he is a relatively effective pitcher.

Relievers are highly volatile due to the relatively small number of innings the pitch. One or two bad outings, like yesterday or Coke's 0.1 IP 6 ER disaster in Chicago on 8/1, can have a major impact on a reliever's statistics. Despite being a former starter with a decent arsenal of pitches, and despite his numbers being good against right handed batters for most of the season, Joe Girardi has insisted upon using Coke as a match-up lefty for most of the year, with 30 of his 59 appearances lasting less than an inning.

Coke has been pretty high up in the bullpen pecking order for most of the season. He'll need to show some improvement over these last five weeks to justify keeping that status in October. If he can keep the ball in the ballpark more often, he has a good chance at making those improvements.

Risky Robby

Leading off the bottom of the 5th inning last night, Robinson Cano slashed at the first pitch he saw from Vin Mazzaro, sending it bending down the left field line and into the corner. It hit off the wall, just inside of the line and as the ball bounced directly to Matt Holliday and the cameras panned back to Cano, he was just rounding first, and I knew he was dead to rights at second.

It was part of that innate feel you develop as a fan. If you know who's at the plate, you've got a pretty good sense of how long the ball needs to rattle around before an outfielder gets his hands on it for your guy to get to second or third. You know when a balls rolls up to the wall and Jeter is running, he's thinking about a triple (and so are you). With that clean carom, it would have been a tight play even for Brett Gardner.

Replays showed that Cano paused for a second to see if the ball was fair or foul off the bat (understandable), and started down the first kind of slowly, which would have been fine if he was going to settle for a single. But inexplicably, as he was nearing first base, he broke into a full sprint, only to be gunned down at second about literally two full strides at the least. In the second picture on the right, it looks as if first base coach Mick Kelleher yelling at him to stop. That's probably because Holliday had already released the ball and Cano could have turned back.

As you can see, he was at barely in the fame when the ball arrived to Mark Ellis at 2nd base, and was out by 3 full strides.

This is an isolated incident, and it might seem like I'm dwelling on a baserunning mistake for way too long, but I think lends some insight into his lack of discipline at the plate and in turn his inability to hit with runners in scoring position.

His baserunning mistakes (he's 16 for 34 in SB in his career) say more about his level of risk aversion than his speed on the basepaths. The same can be said for someone with a lack of discipline at the plate. They are willing to swing at pitches that are harder to hit, thus increasing the likelihood of failure.

Cano has the 13th highest swing percentage in the Majors with 51.7%, but makes contact 91.2% of the time, which is 7th highest, where the leaders in that category (Luis Castillo, Marco Scutaro) have some of the lowest swing percentages in the game. Think about how good you have to be at putting the bat on the ball to rank so highly in both of those categories. He makes contact with 79.5% of the pitches he swings at out of the zone.

My contention is that his lack of plate discipline is what is eating away at his production with runners in scoring position and men on base in general. He's at .205 w/RISP this year as opposed to .356 without. For his career, he has a .743 OPS men on base as opposed to .895 with the bags unoccupied, and the former includes 14 intentional walks.

My half-baked theory goes like this: Pitchers are more reluctant to give a batter a pitch to hit with men on base, especially early in the count, but Cano goes up swinging like he always does, and puts the bat on the ball, but makes poorer contact as a result. His BABIP bears this out, as it is .297 with men on as opposed to .338 with the bases empty. We usually cite BABIP as a statistic to explain away fluky performances, but this is over his entire career, 2765 plate appearances. There are no more flukes at that sample size.

It's easy to imagine how good Cano could be if he was just more selective at the plate, but as Bill James has pointed out, it's not easy for a hitter to change his approach:

I think it is easier to learn plate discipline than it is to learn speed or to develop a strong throwing arm—but not much easier. A player who lacks plate discipline at age 18 will usually lack plate discipline at age 30. But not always; some players can adapt well to the challenge of learning to lay off certain pitches.

Robinson Cano is an excellent player as he is. Don't get me wrong. He's probably my favorite Yankees' position player and I love watching him take a ball 6 inches off the plate into the home bullpen as much as the next guy. But he will never be a scary, middle of the order type presence unless he can be more selective and make pitchers throw him balls in the strike zone with runners on base.

Game 92: Sing Me Back Home

The Yanks have a chance to stretch their current winning streak to 4 and their season series record against the Orioles to 7-3 tonight. Jose Molina is behind the plate, Eric Hinske is in right and Melky is in center with the rest of the defensive alignment in their prime offensive configuration.

Taking the mound for O's will be David Hernandez, a rookie who the Yankees have never seen. Perhaps it's just the attention that has been focused on these types of games, but it seems like the Yanks have faced more than their fair share of fresh meat so far this season. Hernandez is a big 24 year old righty, at 6'3", 215, and has a 4.30 ERA and a 2-2 record in 5 starts this year. He hasn't been dominant, striking out only 13 in 29 1/3 innings and walking 12 in the process.

For the Yanks, Andy Pettitte will be pitching on 9 days rest. His career numbers are slightly better on six or more days rest, which is a good sign, but his stats at the New Yankee Stadium leave much to be desired. Pettitte has been fairly vocal about his poor performances at the new digs. He's blamed his lack of success on his tendency to give up more home runs in the Bronx and a resulting reluctance to challenge hitters, leading to more walks. Here's what he said after his last start at home against the Blue Jays:

"It's very discouraging because I felt like I might've had my best stuff," said Pettitte, who surrendered five walks and five hits, including Alex Rios' three-run, third-inning blow to left. "I feel like a broken record saying I need to keep the walks down, especially here, where you just can't walk guys like that.

"I'm really scratching my head figuring out how I walked so many."

Pettitte's K/BB ratio is actually identical at home and on the road at 1.63, and his walk rate is slightly higher away from TNYS (3.52/9 to 4.13/9). He goes deeper into games on the road as well. True, his home run totals are dramatically different with 12 of them coming in the Bronx against only 3 on the road but that gap is narrowed a bit by the fact that he's thrown 15 more innings at home. To boot, 8 of the ones at home have gone out to left field, which by most accounts isn't that much easier to reach than it was in the old ballpark.

What I'm getting at is that I think much of Pettitte's struggles are in his head. Perhaps it's a product of bad luck. His BABIP is .054 higher at home which you would assume to be even higher, given all the home runs that are taken out of the equation. Bad luck doesn't change what happened in the past, but it does help to more accurately predict the future. In his career, Pettitte's ERA is nearly a half run lower at home and I'm guessing that New Stadium will be kinder to Pettitte in the second half of the '09 season, which very well could be the last of his career. Hopefully tonight will be a step in that direction for him.

Sing me back home with a song I used to hear,
Make my old memories come alive,
Take me away and turn back the years,
Sing me back home before I die.

Checking In On AJax

Chad Jennings of the most excellent Scranton Wilkes-Barre Yankees blog has a story on and a Q&A with Austin Jackson.

The story leads in with a quote from Keith Law in an ESPN.com chat in response to a question about Slade Heathcott, that was rather unflattering towards Jackson:

"He'll sign," Law wrote. "Five-tool guy, chance to be the player that Austin Jackson ... well, that Jackson probably isn't going to be now."

Jennings went around to various members of the organization including teammates and coaches who of course were more than happy to sing Jackson's praises.

Funny that Law would pick this year, when Jackson is hitting .320/.385/.421 in International League play to give such a lukewarm forecast. The reasons for the sentiment behind Law's statement are that Jackson hasn't hit for power, he strikes out too much and his BABIP indicates he's gotten lucky with the placement of his hits.

True, Jackson is averaging more than a strikeout per game, and has only two home runs on the season. Sure, his BABIP is .433, but that isn't quite as high as it seems, since his career average is .366. Furthermore, the increase in strikeouts decreases the denominator in the BABIP equation and the absence of home runs not only inflates the numerator, but also means that his hardest hit balls are landing in play. So perhaps that number isn't as inflated as it seems.

His line drive rate is also quite high at 24% and perhaps some of those balls that are hit hard enough to be home runs are falling into the gaps for doubles. Jackson also has four triples and is 12 for 12 on stolen base attempts.

Jackson made the leap to triple A this year and responded by increasing each of his slash statistics to this point, even if the home runs aren't coming. That would be impressive, even if he weren't just 22 years old.

It seems the Yankees are going to be patient with Jackson and give him time to develop, or so says Joel Sherman:

Interestingly (to me at least), the Yanks are in no rush to bring Austin Jackson to the majors in 2009. They feel he needs the full season of Triple-A experience and might even need some more minor league seasoning next year.

Matt and I had a discussion about whether or not to bring Jackson up to the big leagues if Melky Cabrera needed to spend time on the DL after he ran into the wall in Texas. Matt though he should stay down in Scranton and it appears that is the Yankees' plan, at least for the time being. It's commendable that the Yanks are taking the patient approach, but I think a large part of it is due to the fact that he is essentially the same type of player as Brett Gardner. He's fast, can get on base but has hardly any power. There are clearly some parts of his game that still need to come together, and it seems like Jackson is well aware of that:

Q (Jennings): On the whole, we're about halfway through the year, how do you think it's gone so far?

A (Jackson): I'm happy with how it's been so far. I'm not satisfied. I still think there's always room for improvement and I feel like I could always be doing better.

Good Melky, Bad Melky

While the likely takeaways from yesterday's game were Melky Cabrera's 2 homers, a solo shot in the second, and especially the walk-off in the bottom of the 14th inning...

...Don't forget about this:

In the 7th inning, with the bases loaded and no one out, Melky came to the plate and struck out on four pitches, the last of which was literally at his eyes. Look at what Suzuki had to just to catch that ball. Russ Springer missed his spot by three feet and still got the biggest K of the game. That at-bat would loom large, as the score remained 7-7 until the 14th.

To my eyes, there-in lies the problem with Melky. He goes up to the plate swinging for the fences, and refuses to believe that he's just not a home run hitter. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut on occasion, so there are going to be days like yesterday when he gets lucky and jacks one or two. But by and large this approach is killing his value as an everyday player.

Let's go to the numbers, shall we?

These are the three seasons in which Melky appeared in enough games to analyze the results. There are differences in PA's, but even when you factor those in, the trends are still clear. The darker shaded numbers are the most optimal ones.

From ages 21 (in 2006) to 23, his average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and consequently OPS have all been in decline. He age 21 season was what got most Yankee fans excited about him. Homegrown talent with a strong arm and pretty decent production at the plate for a CF.

While his home runs were consistent throughout all three seasons, Melky's doubles declined drastically. Why would that be? When he takes his home run cut, Cabrera ends up hitting a lot of pop ups. It's the downside of his "all or nothing" approach to hitting.

The last column represents in-field fly balls, and as you can see that percentage jumped significantly (at the 90% confidence level) from '07 to '08. As a result of hitting more pop-ups, his Batting Average On Balls In Play has been on the decline as well, because a much higher percentage of pop flies are converted into outs than any other type of batted ball.

It's been a while since Max Kellerman tried to sell everyone on the notion that Melky was the second coming of Bernie Williams based on their minor league track records and early MLB performance. I don't know too many people who think he can be an everyday player, let alone a batting champion or top 10 MVP candidate anymore. Rob, the sponsor of Melky's Baseball-Reference page said it best:

Oh, what you, Leche, could have been. With only 280 ABs in AAA they wasted all your options before your 24th birthday. Bernie got 468 ABs in AAA and almost two full seasons in AA. Hopefully you find a chance to develop as a hitter.

I suppose for the time being that Melky is a pretty decent fourth outfielder. He has marginal defensive value in CF, but is solid in left and right with a strong arm. That makes him a good choice for a late-inning defensive replacement, and as he showed us yesterday, he's got the potential to make an impact offensively as well. I just don't want anyone to get carried away and say they want to see him starting.

Looking Ahead

Trying to make sense of Matt Holliday's home/road splits yesterday got me thinking about next offseason already. After this year, the Yankees are going to be in the market for some outfielders. The contracts for Xavier Nady, Johnny Damon, and Hideki Matsui will all be expiring, leaving Nick Swisher, Brett Gardner, Melky Cabrera and possibly Austin Jackson if he makes some serious strides through the minors.

Those remaining all represent some pretty serious question marks. As a Yankee fan, I'd like to think that Swisher is due for a bounce back since his stats took a serious dip last year in what is ostensibly his prime (age 27) and had a BABIP of .249. Brett Gardner may be off to a nice start this Spring, but let's not forget that in 127 Major League AB's last year he had a line of .228/.283/.299, good for a 53 OPS+. In a year when Melky was supposed to step forward, he fell back significantly. Austin Jackson is still only a prospect, so planning around him being MLB-ready to start the 2010 season is quite foolhardy.

Back in December, Tim at MLBTR compiled a list of the free agents to be in 2010. I whittled it down to the most intriguing options, in my opinion. (The Scarlet B represents a Boras client)

Centerfield Options
Rick Ankiel (30) - B
Coco Crisp (30) - $8MM club option with a $500K buyout

Unless the market turns around Crisp won't have his option picked up the the Royals, but I'd rather have Count Chocula or Tony the Tiger playing CF. Ankiel represents the Boras Dilemma. If he has a great year, his price tag will be astronomical, if he has an average one, you aren't going to be too excited about getting him anyway.

I think we have to hope that either Jackson or Gardner pan out for that spot. They are both solid defensively, which is tremendously important, but they will have to prove that they can hit Major League pitching before I get excited about either of them manning center field.

Now, the Corner Outfield Options.

• Carl Crawford (28) - $10MM club option with a $1.25MM buyout
• Jason Bay (31)

I really, really, really like Carl Crawford, aside from his production (or lack thereof due to a torn tendon in his hand) last year. Each year from 2004-07 he had 11 or more HRs, from 46-59 stolen bases, and averaged almost 15 triples (!) per year. The Rays have a pretty well-stocked farm system and it wouldn't be all that shocking if they didn't spring for his $10M option. More on that here (from before Fack Youk's pre-Black & White borrowed picture policy).

I get the feeling the Red Sox will sign Jason Bay before the season is over, but if they don't, I hope the Yankees take serious interest. He gets slept on because he spent most of his career with the Pirates, but look at his numbers. He had a down year in '07, but the guy can hit.


More Boras Dilemmas:

1. Matt Holliday (30) B
2. Xavier Nady (31) B
3. Johnny Damon (36) B

Pass. Pass. Pass.


The Old, the Expensive and the Defensively Incompetent:

1. Bobby Abreu (36)
2. Jermaine Dye (36) - $12MM mutual option with a $1MM buyout
3. Vladimir Guerrero (34)
4. Manny Ramirez (38) - $20MM player option B
5. Magglio Ordonez (36) - $15MM club/vesting option with a $3MM buyout

Part of me would love to see one of these guys DH'ing, but the other knows that with the Yanks aging rapidly, there will be guys who need a break from playing the field from time to time. Is it worth overpaying for a top of the line hitter when their presence is going to take Jorge out of his rhythm when he has to ride the pine when he's not manning the dish? Maybe not.

Doing Splits

I don't play fantasy baseball, but I would like to give you some advice if you do.

Let someone else draft Matt Holliday.

I'm guessing there is some sucker in your league that is going to have their perception skewed by his 2nd place finish in the 2007 NL MVP voting or Woody Paige's homeristic knob slobbery. Perhaps they remember the play at the plate in the 13th inning against the Padres in the 163rd game of the '07 season and subsequent World Series run and snatch him up in the first round. Unfortunately for them, he will now be hitting in the spacious McAfee Coliseum which would harm any hitter's offensive production, let alone someone with Holliday's home/road splits.

If you are a fan of any team with money to spend in the 2010 offseason, you may want to pay attention to this as well, because he will be a free agent (represented by Scott Boras) next year.

Five years is a pretty damn large sample size and those differences are staggering. I can see a player's slugging percentage varying dramatically from home to away based on the dimensions and conditions of other parks, but his average and OBP are both far lower away from Coors. As friend of the blog Simon said on GChat yesterday, he's is like Manny Ramirez at home and Xavier Nady on the road. Look at those guys' stats. He's dead on.

The good news for Holliday owners and A's fans is that his numbers on the road have continually improved throughout his career. Although he didn't have a particularly good year in 2008, his splits were the least dramatic of his five years in the league. That was both a function of his home numbers dropping (especially slugging) and his road numbers getting better.

On other astonishing nugget I found along while perusing his Baseball Reference pages was that his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) was .324 on the road, which is well above the league average (+/- .290). But at home... it's .382. Wow.

(Chart via FanGraphs)

That's not a single season fluke. That took place over the course of 5 seasons and almost 350 games. Granted, the better a hitter is, the better his BABIP will be, given that the ball comes off the bat of the best players the hardest, making it more difficult to field. That said, Manny Ramirez's career BABIP is .344, Albert Puljos's is .323 and A-Rod's is .327. Holliday's overall is .356.

Coors Field installed a humidor in 2002 to counteract the effects of altitude, but it appears as though BABIP is skewed higher in Denver. Todd Helton has a pretty significant home/away BABIP split (.358 to .313). Garrett Atkins (.351 to .279) and Troy Tulowitski (.330 to .302) do too.

It should be interesting to watch Holliday this season, and as fans of AL teams, we will have a few chances to do so. I'm still a little dumbfounded by these numbers, but all signs point to the former Rockie falling off this year with out the assistance of altitude. One thing is for sure though, no matter what happens, Scott Boras is going to be demanding way too much for him next offseason.

"Can Anyone Be This Good?"

Jeff Francoeur is heading to arbitration and seeking $3.95M, while the Braves have offered $2.8M.

Joe Posnanski has an advanced transcript, and here is an excerpt:

Francoeur's People: Only two other players in the National League have started as many games as him since he entered the league in 2005.

Arbitrator: Hmm. Who are those two?

FP: Jose Reyes and David Wright.

Arbitrator: Well, of course, I’ve heard of both of those players. This seems quite compelling to me. What do you Atlanta guys say about that?

Atlanta Braves: He sucks.

Arbitrator: I see.

I'm going to have to side with the Braves on this one. Last year, Francoeur had a 72 OPS+ as a corner outfielder. Just to frame that epic suckitude, Melky Cabrera had a 68 OPS+, but at least was able to play a somewhat competent CF.

Which made me think back to this:

The short answer to the question at the bottom: Yes, but not Jeff Francoeur.

When they wrote the article he was apparently batting in the .370's, and on the date on the cover (9/29/05) he was batting .351 with a 1.032 OPS. One good reason not to run a cover story on the guy was the fact that his OBP was only .377, meaning if his hits weren't dropping in, he wasn't getting on base. After the story ran, his production steadily dwindled until he ended the season at .300/.336/.549.

For the 2005 as a whole, Francoeur's BABIP was .337 which was still above average, but it was most likely much higher when he was tearing the cover off the ball (can't find those #'s). He actually had another BABIP of exactly .337 in 2007 but hit only. 261, meaning that he was getting lucky, but was still pretty bad. It might have been a good stat for SI to look up before devoting a cover to "Georgia's New Peach" and saying things like:

[Ed. Note: I am about to FJM an article from August, 2005 with the full benefit of hindsight. It's low-hanging fruit, I know. In exchange, feel free to make fun of me for spending my Valentine's Day writing for a sports blog.]

Although he'd played just 30 games in the majors, of course Francoeur was singing in the outfield. Why not?

Although... of course... Why not? No matter what words you fit between those three, that sentence and a half wasn't going to make sense. The fact that he had only played 30 games in the majors didn't really have anything to do with the fact that he was signing in the outfield. Maybe he was nervous, or maybe be just likes to sing. It should have, however, factored into the decision to run a cover story about how awesome he is/will be in the most read sports magazine in the country. (small sample size)

The TV highlights roll on, showcasing Francoeur's typically sublime game against the Los Angeles Dodgers the previous night. He went 2 for 5, lifting his average to .373, and hit his 10th home run, a 407-foot parabola that landed midway up the leftfield stands. He saw a total of 16 pitches, on par with his economical average of 3.34 pitches per plate appearance.

Odd, last time I checked, pitchers were the ones trying to be economical with the amount of pitches per plate appearance...

Speed, clearly, is yet another implement in the seemingly bottomless Francoeur toolbox.

A bottomless toolbox couldn't hold any tools, now could it? An unintentionally prescient statement, nice work.

Following that 10-2 win, Braves starter Tim Hudson said of Francoeur, "He's like Roy Hobbs. I'm waiting for him to come out of the bullpen and start striking guys out, throwing 98 [mph]. Or to start hitting bombs lefthanded."

He added, "I'm also waiting for that mysterious woman on the train to shoot him after he strikes out Walter "The Whammer" Whambold at a carnival, only to have him come back 15 years later and be involved in a completely unrealistic game-fixing scandal and strike out in his last at-bat."

So why the reference to The Natural, anyway?

Francoeur was born the year The Natural hit theaters...

So was I and about two million other Americans. Fucking INCREDIBLE!

Here is a short list of of players in the MLB who were born in 1984, along with a reason a similar article was not written about them:

Jose Arredondo  (Synthetic)
Elijah Dukes  (Unnatural)
Scott Kazmir (Artificial)
Tim Lincecum (Supernatural)
Matt Kemp (Manufactured)
Jon Lester (Irregular)
Joakim Soria (Factitious)
B.J. Upton (Black)

The reason books--or at least baseball novels--often disappoint is that authors conjure preposterous characters and absurd situations to heighten the drama.

The reason mainstream baseball writing--or at least this article--had absolutely no chance of sounding even slightly reasonable 3 1/2 years later is that the author conjured a preposterous character and absurd situations to heighten the drama.

The kid proceeds to hit about 100 points higher in the majors than he had in Double A (a fanciful conceit), smacking homers and gunning down runners, all the while singing along to the soundtrack in his head (you've gotta be kidding!) and lifting the local nine into first place. Not even Hollywood would buy it.

No, of course not, because that would be ridiculous.

Producer: He's hitting 100 points higher in the majors than he did in Double A? What's his BABIP?

Assistant: .365, sir.

Producer: He'll be hitting .300 by the end of the season, tell them to fuck off.

But you know who did buy it? Sports Illustrated.

[He had] a 4 for 4 against the Giants five days earlier. "It was strange because that's my first four-hit game ever in pro baseball," Francoeur says. "Never had a perfect day in the minors, no 2 for 2 with two walks or anything. Because I've always been a free swinger, at some at bat during the game I'm going to get stupid and swing at a dumb pitch."

That should probably have told you something.