A couple of weeks ago, I authored a post where I explained why Cliff Lee couldn’t continue pitching as well as he had in his first three starts of the season, when he’d allowed two runs and ran a 2/20 BB/K ratio. I was right; in the four starts since, he hasn’t pitched as well - he’s pitched better, walking two men and striking out 24 guys over his last 30 innings of brilliant work.

He didn’t get the win last night, but he tossed another nine inning shutout, and has now thrown 53 2/3 innings and given up five runs. He’s blanked the opponents in four of his seven starts. He’s only allowed 36 baserunners, and he’s left 31 men on base. We could go on and on, because the numbers don’t get any less ridiculous.

Here’s a comparison that might put this into perspective.

Cliff Lee, first seven starts of 2008: 53 2/3 IP, 32 H, 4 BB, 44 K
Orel Hershiser, last six starts of 1988: 55 IP, 30 H, 9 BB, 34 K

You may have heard about that particular stretch of pitching, as Hershiser set the major league record for consecutive scoreless innings during that run. Cliff Lee is pitching at that level right now.

It’s not going to last - that much is obvious, because no one is this good. But while it does, let’s tip our caps to the guy who has put together one of the great pitching stretches in the history of baseball.

While most of the attention directed towards second basemen is deservedly paid to Chase Utley, another NL East player of the same position, who also happens to have a five-lettered last name beginning with “U” has been posting some pretty solid numbers of his own. Clearly, the title of this post indicates I am speaking about Dan Uggla, who has helped the Marlins to a 23-14 record; believe it or not… that is the highest winning percentage in baseball. Yes, folks, the Marlins, as of right now, are “the best team in baseball.”

Uggla has posted some pretty drastic splits in his numbers this year but let’s first examine everything on the whole:

2006: .282/.339/.480, 112 OPS+, 27 HR, 33 2B-3B, 154 GP
2007: .245/.326/.479, 108 OPS+, 31 HR, 52 2B-3B, 159 GP
2008: .279/.359/.618, 155 OPS+, 11 HR, 12 2B-3B, 36 GP

Taking batting average out of the equation, Uggla essentially performed the same last year as in his rookie season. Many thought he fell into the sophomore slump due to his .245 BA and big jump in strikeouts (123 to 167), but his OBP, SLG, OPS, OPS+, HR and RBI all remained relatively similar. Additionally, his BABIP was a tad lucky in 2006 whereas it was right on par last year. This year, however, everything has jumped and were he to keep pace, he would finish the season with close to 50 home runs. This is not very likely to happen, though, so instead of focusing on what he could do this year, let’s look at what is contributing to these numbers, starting with his splits vs. pitchers:

vs. RHP: .307/.383/.733, 11 HR, 24 RBI (115 PA)
vs. LHP: .200/.293/.286, 0 HR, 3 RBI (41 PA)

Here are his home/road splits:

Home: .213/.306/.533, .839 OPS, 6 HR, 12 RBI (85 PA)
Away: .361/.423/.721, 1.142 OPS, 5 HR, 15 RBI (71 PA)

And here are splits between April and May:

April: 26 GP, .255/.330/.471, .801 OPS, .306 BABIP, 4 HR, 12 RBI
May: 10 GP, .353/.439/1.059, 1.498 OPS, .313 BABIP, 7 HR, 15 RBI

He has homered in seven of his ten games this month and has an absolutely ridiculous SLG and OPS. Additionally, looking at his career splits, May has always been his best month. In May, over the last three years, he has an OPS of 1.026; next closest is June’s .903.

To sum everything up, this year Uggla likes facing righties and hitting on the road, and in his career, REALLY likes this month.

Oliver Perez has always been something of an enigma. A power throwing southpaw who got to the majors with San Diego at a young age and had some early success, he was sent to Pittsburgh along with Jason Bay in the ill fated Brian Giles deal and turned in an amazing 2004 season, striking out 239 batters in 198 innings on his way to posting a 2.98 ERA at age 22. At that point, he looked like one of the best young hurlers in baseball.

The wheels came off the bus quickly, though, as he lost his command of the strike zone and dealt with mechanical issues. In just a year and a half, he went from Pittsburgh ace to New York reclamation project, as the Mets picked him up and hoped to get his career back on track. It worked, too, as he threw 177 quality innings last year and helped add some firepower to the Mets rotation. However, while he has become an asset on the mound, you never really know what you’re going to get from Perez on any given day. Here are his starts from 2007 and 2008, broken down into groupings of Game Scores (where 50 represents an average start, 40 or less is lousy, and 60 or more is quite good).

20-29: 3
30-39: 7
40-49: 4
50-59: 8
60-69: 10
70:79: 5

While Perez’s personal average game score in 2007 and 2008 is 52.8, he’s been disastrously bad in 10 those 37 starts. In three of his first four starts this year, he didn’t give up a single run. In the other start, he gave up six runs in 4 1/3 innings. Perez is both occasionally great and occasionally awful. The end result is a pretty decent pitcher, but certainly not one you want to bet on.

Last week I talked about the Cincinnati Reds’ depth at third base. The San Diego Padres found themselves in a similar situation with current third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff, as well as prospects Matt Antonelli and Chase Headley. Unlike the Reds organization, which has had to move prospects to third base because of defensive deficiencies elsewhere, the Padres have been able to move prospects off third base to other positions: Antonelli to second base and Headley to left field. Those moves alleviate some of the stagnation issues that come with too much depth at any one position.

Kouzmanoff is by no means a top five third baseman in the National League. But to be fair, judging offensive contributions from offensive players on the Padres is never easy given the park that they play half of their games in. Overall, he is hitting .278/.310/.383 with three homers in 162 at-bats. Let’s take a look at his home and away splits:

Home: 80 AB .250/.265/.363 2 HR
Away: 82 AB .305/.352/.402 1 HR

Obviously, Kouzmanoff has a much nicer average at home but the power numbers are not that dissimilar. He is displaying below average power for a third baseman both on the road and at home. Kouzmanoff is also not a great defensive third baseman by any means. Should either Antonelli or Headley prove unable to handle their new positions in the long run, Kouzmanoff may not be showing enough to make himself irreplaceable.

Antonelli came close to winning the second base job this spring but was assigned to Triple-A for more seasoning, which probably turned out to be a good thing for the 2006 first round pick. He has taken OK to second base defensively, but his bat has struggled this season and he is hitting only .185/.329/.336 in 119 at-bats. Last season, Antonelli’s offence was probably a little overrated after he hit .314/.409/.499 in 347 High-A at-bats and .294/.395/.476 in 187 Double-A at-bats. Both of those parks - Lake Elsinore and San Antonio - are good hitter’s parks in good hitter’s leagues. Given that Antonelli came into 2008 with less than 200 at-bats above A-ball, it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise that he has struggled. With Tadahito Iguchi doing a respectable job of bridging the gap from present to future, the Padres can afford Antonelli the time to develop a little further.

Headley is having a better offensive time at Triple-A than Antonelli, although he did struggle early on in April. In his last 10 games, Headley has hit .429 (18-for-42) and has his line up to .294/.368/.441. Last season, the 2005 second round pick really put himself on the prospect map with a .330/.437/.580 performance at Double-A San Antonio. His power is down noticeably this season but he’s holding his own. With the Padres last in the National League in a number of key offensive categories (runs, average, on-base percentage and slugging) it may not be long before the club decides to shake things up. With less-than-inspired offensive performances from the likes of Justin Huber, Scott Hairston, Paul McAnulty and Jody Gerut, it may not be long before we see Headley patrolling left field for the Padres.

With Corey Koskie suffering from post-concussion syndrome, and the platoon of Craig Counsell/Tony Graffanino not producing, the Brewers brought up Ryan Braun last May hoping he could quell any or all of their hot corner problems. The prospect with the nickname “The Hebrew Hammer”—odd, that’s Gabe Kapler’s nickname as well—did not disappoint, posting incredibly gaudy numbers in just 113 games. He would win the Rookie of the Year award and, by all accounts, had one of the best offensive rookie seasons in the history of the game.

In it, he posted a slash line of .324/.370/.634, with an 153 OPS+, 26 doubles, 6 triples, and 34 home runs. Remember, too, that his season did not begin until May 24th.

He has gotten off to a slow start this year, hitting .275/.306/.463, with an OPS+ of just 99, 13 doubles, and 5 home runs. Coming into the season the projection systems did not have much to work with, as he only played most of one season, but all saw him finishing the season with an OPS of at least .829; it is currently .769. Those with OPS counts in a similar range: Jeff Keppinger (.770), Ian Kinsler (.773).

***Actually, and I only leave this in because it helps prove a small sample size point, but this article was written seemingly before Braun’s stats from yesterday updated; with his game yesterday, some of the numbers change. Due to his two home run performance, his OPS jumped from .769 to .814. And, for anyone wondering, Kinsler went up to .793 while Keppinger skyrocketed to .800.***

MGL recently posted a study that takes a look at what hot or cold April’s tell us about hitters. He finds that those who started off slow essentially finished the year with their projected OPS; while this does not necessarily relate to Braun in the sense that those used in the study had OPS counts under .500, I think the above mention of his OPS jump illustrates how hot or cold starts can be very deceiving and not necessarily indicative at all of what to expect. His numbers still aren’t where they were last year but that does not mean they will not be by the end of the year.

Using the stats we have for this season, let’s try to deduce what Braun is doing differently this year, if anything, or if this is all just the work of evil small sample sizes.

Looking at his swing data, he is making contact much more than he did last year. Despite swinging at about five percent less pitches in the strike zone he is making contact over six percent more often. Additionally, he is swinging at over four percent more pitches outside of the strike zone but making contact three percent more often. As we would intuitively expect following such a tremendous season, he is seeing less pitches in the strike zone. While I will need to do a full Pitch F/X study on him to see what he’s doing with these pitches outside of the zone, one possibility is that he simply isn’t connecting as well to them.

Another area to explore involves his BABIP and rates of balls in play. He is hitting more line drives this year, going from 16% to 18%; his grounders have gone from 38.8% to 32.8%; and his flyballs have jumped from 44.9% to 49.2%. Last year, his xBABIP would have been somewhere in the .280-.286 range; it ended up at .367. This year, though, they are within reason; his current BABIP of .313 comes pretty darn close to his expected .306 clip.

Another interesting aspect of the Hebrew Hammer (Braun, not Kapler) is his walks deficiency. He walked just 6% of the time last year, resulting in a BB/K of 0.26; that 0.26 would have been the seventh worst had he garnered enough plate appearances to truly qualify. This year he is walking just 4.4% of the time and, despite reducing his K-rate by about four percent, his BB/K of 0.23 currently ranks as the eighth worst.

This is essentially just a recap of what he has been doing this year as compared to last, and it seems that a few of the aforementioned factors are contributing to his “slow” start. Then again, as MGL and Braun’s performance yesterday showed, things can quickly change. For the sake of Braun and Brewers fans everywhere, I hope in August, when Braun smacks dingers #42-43 we can revisit this article and go “Jeez, what the heck was Seidman talking about!?”

The Cardinals offense this year was supposed to be Albert Pujols, Rick Ankiel, and not a whole heck of a lot else. Ryan Ludwick apparently had other ideas. He hit his 8th home run of the season last night and is now second in the National League in OPS behind Lance Berkman. Chipper Jones is getting a lot of notoriety, since he’s hitting .400 and all, but Ludwick is producing at a similar level through the first quarter of the season.

Not a bad return for St. Louis, who picked up Ludwick on a minor league contract in December of 2006, after four previous organizations decided he wasn’t in their plans. A former 2nd round pick of the A’s, he’d shown some power while climbing the minor league ladder, but his aggressive approach and lack of contact caused teams to question whether he’d produce enough to justify a regular job in a corner outfield spot. Poor major league performances, albeit in limited trials, from 2002 to 2004 didn’t help his cause, and last season was his first real chance to play on even a semi-regular basis. He showed the same aggressive power hitter skill set as always, but improved his contact rate enough to get his batting average and on base percentage up to respectable levels.

Given a mostly regular job so far this year, he’s performing like never before. His line drive percentage is an other-worldly 39.1%, or higher than Lance Berkman and Hanley Ramirez’s combined line drive rates. The next highest LD% is Matt Kemp at 32.3%, and Aaron Rowand (30.1%) is the only other guy in baseball above the 30% threshold. Ludwick’s hitting line drives almost 40% of the time. That’s just ridiculous.

It’s also totally unsustainable. The highest full season LD% from 2004 to 2007 belonged to Brian Roberts in 2005, at 27.4%. As good as Ludwick is going, he just can’t keep hitting line drives at a 40% clip. He will cool off, and regression to the mean will rear its ugly little head. But for six weeks, Ludwick has been about as good as anyone in baseball.

The St. Louis Cardinals are playing surprisingly good baseball so far in 2008, posting a 22-15 record and leading the NL Central division. However, they could be doing substantially better if not for the struggles of their closer, Jason Isringhausen. After blowing another 9th inning lead last night, Izzy has now accumulated a major league worst -2.25 WPA, thanks to allowing 13 runs in 15 2/3 high leverage innings. During the last two and a half weeks, Isringhausen has given up a lead or tie five times. Charts like this will give Tony LaRussa some kind of heartburn.

This isn’t just bad timing, either - Isringhausen is running a 5.16 FIP, thanks to command problems and an inability to keep the ball in the yard. He’s not as bad as his 7.47 ERA would indicate, but St. Louis is going to have to see him pitcher better than he is if they’re going to keep handing him high leverage situations where they can’t afford to let him give up a run. With youngster Kyle McClellan throwing well (2.87 FIP, closer stuff), the Cardinals have an alternative option. Isringhausen may be the established veteran down there, but right now, the only thing he’s establishing is that he shouldn’t be pitching in the 9th inning.

The site has been updated with Win Probability stats for 1981 - 1988.

Please make note of Dwight Gooden’s 1985 season when he had a WPA of 9.94. The only player to have a higher WPA in the years that WPA has been run for is Barry Bonds. Bonds bested him in 2002 and 2004, but that’s it. His BRAA that season was 75, which is 10 runs better than any other pitcher in a single season for all WPA years calculated so far.

The next best player that season in terms of WPA was Eddie Murray who had 6.75 wins, more than 3 wins less than Gooden. And while Gooden unanimously won the Cy Young award that year, he was without a doubt the MVP that season too.

An article of mine titled “Low Risk-Any Reward?” was published in the most recent issue of SABR’s newsletter, By the Numbers. The article looked at low-risk pitcher signings from 2002-2007 and sought to find out if they were really worth the risk. This year, at least one such low-risk signing is performing pretty well. His name is Shawn Chacon and you may remember the 30-yr old Alaskan from his past work with the Rockies, Yankees, and Pirates.

Chacon has made seven starts this year and is yet to receive a decision. Yes, you read that correctly: he is still 0-0. While Aaron Harang has been unlucky in his decisions received, Chacon hasn’t even gotten the chance to receive unmerited decisions.

He has gone six or more innings in all but one start and allowed more than three runs just twice; ironically, they were his most recent starts.

On the year he has pitched in 45 innings, surrendering 40 hits and 22 walks, while striking out 32 batters. With five home runs allowed and a 1.45 K/BB ratio, his ERA of 3.60 is a bit misleading of his skill level; his FIP suggests it should be closer to 4.48.

His 1.38 WHIP greatly benefits from a 78.2 LOB% and hitters are producing at a slash line of .244/.332/.402; an OPS of .734. Oddly enough, Chacon is the first pitcher I’ve come across here whose BABIP perfectly correlates with his xBABIP via frequency of line drives. His 15.0% LD would suggest a BABIP of .270. His actual BABIP? .269!

He has cut back on his usage of fastballs by nearly ten percent, filling the void with three percent more sliders and six percent more curveballs. His next scheduled start is May 11th. Hopefully he can get a decision then or else Odalis Perez’s record of 18 ND’s in 2004 may soon be in jeopardy.

If you don’t live in Washington D.C. and you actually know something about John Lannan, raise your hand. Don’t worry hands-in-your-lappers, you’re not alone. This nondescript lefty has snuck up on the world, and outside of the Nationals season ticket holders and his immediate family, he’s still an unknown. But, as long as Lannan continues to be overlooked, the world will continue to miss out on one of the more underrated youngsters around.

Lannan was an 11th round pick by the Nationals in the 2005 draft out of noted baseball powerhouse Siena College. At 6′5, he’s in the John Halama school of tall guys who look like they should throw harder than they do. His below average velocity and no real out pitch caused him to be seen as a longshot to make the majors, which is why Washington was able to select him 324th overall three years ago.

He didn’t exactly light the minor leagues on fire, either. His debut in Vermont was mediocre at best, as he po6sted 5.34 ERA with 31 walks and 41 strikeouts in 63 innings of work. Generally, guys who can’t get swings and misses in short season leagues don’t make it to the majors. However, he moved up to Savannah, the Nationals full season affiliate in the South Atlantic League, in 2001, and made some strides. He struck out 114 batters in 138 innings, but his command problems (54 walks and six hit batters) helped him give up 83 runs.

Heading into last season, he was still more organizational player than real prospect, but started to get better sink on his fastball and improved his command, allowing him to climb from high-A ball all the way to the majors in a single season. He earned the distinction of being the first player ejected from his ML debut last summer after hitting Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, breaking Utley’s wrist in the process.

But now, after his 6 IP/1 R performance against Houston last night, he sports a 3.40 ERA and 3.98 FIP, entrenching himself as a regular member of the Washington rotation and making himself memorable for reasons beyond injuring all-stars. How has this kid come from out of nowhere to become a viable major league starter?

Once again, the hidden goodness of ground balls. Lannan’s pounding the bottom of the zone with his mixture of pitches that includes a solid two-seam fastball that makes up in movement what it lacks in velocity. His slider, curve, change, and cut fastball help keep hitters off balance, and he mixes all five pitches well and keeps them down in the zone. His command still isn’t great, but when he misses, he misses down in the zone, which helps keep the ball in the yard.

His stuff is good enough to rack up an average strikeout rate, and as we’ve talked about before, the combination of some strikeouts and a lot of ground balls are a powerful force for any pitcher. He may have come out of nowhere, but he’s showing staying power. As long as he keeps that sinking fastball down in the zone, the Nationals will be quite happy to pencil Lannan into their rotation for the next several years.