Leading up to the 2007 MLB amateur draft, there were three Puerto Rican players considered to be head-and-shoulders above their fellow country men in terms of potential: Reynaldo Navarro, Neftali Soto, and Angel Morales. All three players were chosen in the third round and were considered raw but talented. Let’s see how each one fared during the 2008 season.

Reynaldo Navarro, Shortstop, Arizona Diamondbacks
Navarro, 18, got off to a slow start after turning pro in 2007 by hitting .250/.274/.283 in 212 Rookie ball at-bats. He returned to the same league in 2008 and has improved, albeit slowly. He produced a line of .262/.334/.379 with 17 stolen bases in 256 at-bats. After walking just six times last season, Navarro has improved his patience by walking 25 times in 2008. The switch hitter needs to improve his swing from the left-hand side as he hit just .212 against right-handers, compared to .377 against southpaws. Right now, defence is his strong suit as a slick-fielding shortstop with range and actions. His arm strength is average.

Neftali Soto, Third baseman, Cincinnati Reds
Originally a shortstop, Soto was immediately converted to third base by the Reds. In his debut in the Gulf Coast League in 2007, he got off to a fast start and hit .303/.355/.454 in 40 games. The Reds were cautious with Soto in 2008 and he began the year in Rookie ball again where he hit .388/.423/.746 in 15 games. Soto, 19, was promoted to A-ball and hit .333/.352/.502 with six homers in 201 at-bats. The knock on him, though, is his lack of patience. In 103 pro games, Soto has walked just 22 times. Regardless, he is an intriguing prospect and has shown a lot of improvement in a short period of time. Reds fans need to start talking about this guy.

Angel Morales, Outfielder, Minnesota Twins
Morales’ bat was considered to be his weakest tool coming into the draft. He still struggles with consistency but no one expected him to hit with this kind of power, especially so soon. Morales had a decent debut by hitting .256/.357/.405 in 121 at-bats in the Gulf Coast League in 2007. He was held back for short-season ball again in 2008 but was promoted to a league that features more college players and Morales exploded with 15 homers in 183 at-bats. His overall line is .301/.413/.623 with 26 walks and a disturbing 72 strikeouts. Morales is going to have to swing-and-miss a lot less if he is going to maintain his average at higher levels. The right-handed batter is also hitting just .135 against southpaws, but that should improve as he sees more of them. Defensively, Morales is a solid center fielder.

Quick, name the catcher with the most home runs in the American League.

No, not him. Not him either. Give up?

Try Kelly Shoppach. Yea, I know, Kelly Shoppach. Last night he hit his 17th home run of the season, and if the Indians were looking for excuses for why their season hasn’t gone as expected, they can’t blame the injury to Victor Martinez, as Shoppach is filling his shoes quite nicely.

His home run last night was his 38th extra base hit, using his power to compensate for his strikeout rate that drives down his batting average. Shoppach actually has more XBH than singles (36), and his ISO of .250 puts him in the company of the more famous slugging backstops such as Brian McCann and Geovany Soto.

At 28, Shoppach is something of a late bloomer, but the ability to drive the ball makes up for the rest of his flaws. His command of the strike zone is pretty miserable (he makes contact like Jack Cust and walks like Robinson Cano), but when he makes contact, he makes it count - his batting average on contact is .399.

So, what do the Indians do next year when Martinez returns? It’s pretty clear that Shoppach is good enough to play regularly, but neither he nor Martinez would be nearly as valuable playing first base as they are behind the plate. The Indians might be best off shopping one of the two this winter, because while having two good catchers is a nice problem to have, it’s still a problem.

The Arizona Diamondbacks have two Cy Young contenders in Brandon Webb and Dan Haren, the two front-of-the-rotation horses that are trying to carry them to the playoffs despite an offense that has struggled to score runs after a hot start. While the excellence of the top two has gotten plenty of notice, don’t look now, but after a rough first half, Randy Johnson is reminding everyone that he’s still pretty good himself.

First 17 Starts: 98 IP, 2.57 BB/9, 8.72 K/9, 1.37 HR/9, 5.26 ERA
Last 7 Starts: 47 1/3 IP, 1.14 BB/9, 8.37 K/9, 0.57 HR/9, 1.52 ERA

By cutting his home run rate and walk rates in half while sustaining a strikeout rate of nearly a batter per inning, Johnson’s overcome his early season struggles (which were exacerbated by some bad luck) and returned to previous levels of dominance. Despite no longer throwing 100 MPH, he’s still blowing people away, and gives the Diamondbacks perhaps the best #3 starter in all of baseball.

In fact, it’s hard to argue that there’s a better pitching trio anywhere on earth than Webb-Haren-Johnson. Even with the problems Arizona’s had with their offense and bullpen, I certainly wouldn’t want to play this team in a playoff series. The starting pitching is that scary.

Keep in mind, too, that Randy Johnson turns 45 years old in a couple of weeks. The list of pitchers who have succeeded at this age is pretty short, and the fact that Johnson’s still going strong on his way to 50 is pretty remarkable. He really is one of the greatest pitchers of all time, and we should all be thankful we’ve had a chance to watch him pitch.

Following last night’s absolutely insane game between the Phillies and Mets, Ryan Howard staked claim atop the NL leaderboard with his 35th home run of the season. With a little over a month to go in the season it seems perfectly reasonable, especially given his projection, to expect six or seven more dingers, which would put him over 40 for the third straight year. This year isn’t like 2006 or 2007 for Howard, however, as once you get past the home run and RBI totals, he isn’t having anywhere near a good or great season.

In 2006, his MVP campaign, he hit .313/.425/.659. Last year, .268/.392/.584. Sure, last year was a downgrade but he still posted an OPS around the 1.000 mark and showed the ability not just to hit for power but also to work a count and get on base. This year, that slash line has plummeted to .227/.317/.477, “good” for a .794 OPS.

No, batting average does not tell the whole story, especially in the case of power hitters—the value of their hits accounts for much more than singles—but this isn’t a situation like Adam Dunn’s, where a poor BA is masking a great OBP and SLG. All three components of Howard’s slash line are at very reduced rates. There are a few major reasons for this dropoff.

His BABIP has gone from .336 to .269 since last year. His BB-rate has dropped from 16.8% to 11.4%. And lastly, he strikes out all the time and has hit balls on the ground at an alarming rate this year (43.5% compared to 31.5% last year). You might think he has actually reduced his strikeout rate, as it went from 37% to 34%, but this isn’t exactly true. Because he has walked so much less this year, he has more official at-bats, and the punchouts cover a lesser percentage of these at-bats. Just looking at a straight up K/PA, the numbers come in around 30% for both this and last year.

Howard’s current OPS is .794. Players with marks better than his: Jason Kubel, Skip Schumaker, teammate Shane Victorino, and Stephen Drew.

His WPA/LI is 0.58. Players with marks better than his: Reed Johnson, teammate Jimmy Rollins, Ray Durham, and Ramon Santiago.

There is no way you really thought Howard would find himself alongside Jason Kubel and Ramon Santiago in any leaderboard this year. In the comments section of a recent post, someone mentioned that Howard might be having the worst 40-HR season in history. I decided to check if there have been any instances in history where a player hit 40+ home runs but failed to break the .800 OPS plateau.

The answer? No. Nobody has ever hit 40+ home runs with a sub-.800 OPS. Since offense wasn’t as prevalent in some periods back in the day I adjusted this to check for OPS+. Howard’s is barely over 100 right now, so I wanted to see if anyone has ever hit 40+ home runs with an OPS+ lower than 110. The only season I got belonged to Tony Batista, in 2000. Essentially, if Howard continues to mash dingers but fail to do anything else productive, this will be the worst 40-HR season in history, as I find it highly unlikely any other 40-HR club member ever found himself alongside the likes of Ramon Santiago or Jason Kubel in offensive categories.

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There’s no doubt about the fact that CC Sabathia is the prize of the free agent pitching crop this winter. With his dominance since moving to the Brewers, and that Cy Young award he picked up last year, Sabathia is at the top of nearly every teams list, with the question simply being who will pony up the most to secure his services.

The 29 teams who don’t sign Sabathia, however, will have to decide who the next best guy is. Right now, the general consensus seems to be his Milwaukee teammate Ben Sheets. The talent for Sheets has never been in question, and with his 2008 season being his healthiest in four years, he looks poised to cash in as Plan B for the teams who can’t get Sabathia. However, I’d like to suggest that perhaps there’s a better second option for the teams who don’t go after CC, and that man is Derek Lowe.

After a complete game gem last night that the Dodgers still managed to lose, Lowe’s brilliance this year continued to go under the radar. It’s time to shine the light on him and make sure people realize just how good he’s been this year.

At 35 years old, Lowe isn’t aging - he might be getting better. His 1.96 BB/9 is the best of his career. His 6.50 K/9 sustains the gains he made in missing bats last year, the two highest strikeout rates he’s posted as a full time starting pitcher. His improving dominance of the strike zone hasn’t shown up in his home run rate, either - his 0.7 HR/9 is right in line with his career averages.

A 3.00 K/BB rate and a 60% GB% are a powerful combination, and it shouldn’t be surprising that Lowe’s posting the best FIP of his career as a starting pitcher. His WPA/LI is higher than that of Sheets’, and he doesn’t come up with any of the same injury concerns. Yes, he’s 35, but if you can find any signs of decline, you’ve got better eyes than I do.

Derek Lowe is a legitimate frontline starting pitcher, and for a team looking for an impact arm this winter, they shouldn’t overlook the groundball machine hanging out in LA. He’s going to get a big paycheck, but there’s also a good chance that it won’t be as big as it should be.

Yesterday, we talked about the possibility that Albert Pujols is in the midst of his best season, but that his performance has gone largely unnoticed due to our general expectation that he will be, well, awesome. In the discussion thread, one of the topics mentioned involved how we, as fans, are desensitized to Pujols’ 1.100+ OPS primarily due to the absolutely ridiculous seasons of Barry Bonds from 2001-04. With that in mind, I’d like to remind those that have forgotten exactly what the much-maligned Bonds did in this four-year span.

First, just a general look at some of his numbers:

Year    GP     2B     HR     BB     K      BA/OBP/SLG      OPS
2001    153    32     73    177    93    .328/.515/.863   1.379
2002    143    31     46    198    47    .370/.582/.799   1.381
2003    130    22     45    148    58    .341/.529/.749   1.278
2004    147    27     45    232    41    .362/.609/.812   1.422

His slash line in this entire span was .349/.559/.809, which resulted in an OPS of 1.368, a good 300 points ahead of second-place Todd Helton. Each component of that slash line led the major leagues in this span as well. Bonds posted an OPS+ of 256 in these four years, way ahead of Albert Pujols’s 167.

We all know the walks are just mind-boggling, as are the intentional free passes, but Bonds did not strike out much in his actual qualifying at-bats either. It was literally frightening to face him from 2001-04 and teams counteracted this fright by just conceding an open base (or even letting him go to first when the base was occupied) and hoping to retire the subsequent batters.

His WPA/LI counts in these years: 13.04, 11.96, 8.92, 10.87. Yes, they led the league each year, by quite the large margin as well. The closest year came in 2003, when Albert Pujols still finished over 1.5 wins lesser than Bonds.

Looking at these years from an all-time perspective, his OPS numbers in each season ranks amongst the top eight of all time, with his 2004 season ranking first. The 2002 season ranks third, 2001 ranks fourth, and 2003 ranks eighth. Babe Ruth occupies spots #2, 5, and 6, with Ted Williams claiming seventh place. Now, you might be inclined to think that Ruth’s OPS+ would be much higher given that the offense “back in the day” wasn’t as good as it is now, but you would be wrong.

In actuality, Bonds’ OPS+ in 2002, 2004, and 2001 rank #1, 2, and 3 on the all-time list, with his 2003 season coming in at #9. In my estimation, this is hands down the greatest four-season stretch of offense in the history of the sport.

I’ll close by reiterating something RJ Anderson at Beyond the Box Score showed not too long ago. The WARP3 (Wins Above Replacement Player) of the average Hall of Fame hitter is 118.2. The WARP3 of Barry Bonds is 236.4. Barry Bonds makes the average Hall of Fame hitter look like a replacement player.

The story of the 2008 season is obviously the success of Tampa Bay, though skeptics remain, with most prediction markets expecting the Rays to bow out early in the playoffs despite their sustained success. Among mainstream media analysis, a common critique of the Rays is that their bullpen isn’t full of guys with long track records of success, and with Troy Percival’s health in question, the idea of a contender mixing and matching at the end of games scares them.

However, I have to wonder if these analysts have noticed just how good Tampa’s bullpen really is. In fact, you could argue that among the likely AL playoff teams, the Rays bullpen is the best of the bunch. Look at their relief core:

Closer: Troy Percival - 4.15 BB/9, 8.31 K/9, 5.03 FIP, 0.77 WPA/LI
RH Setup: Dan Wheeler - 2.53 BB/9, 6.59 K/9, 4.15 FIP, 1.06 WPA/LI
LH Setup: J.P. Howell - 4.22 BB/9, 9.21 K/9, 3.49 FIP, 1.15 WPA/LI
Middle: Grant Balfour - 4.19 BB/9, 12.98 K/9, 1.89 FIP, 1.58 WPA/LI
LOOGY: Trever Miller - 5.23 BB/9, 8.27 K/9, 3.57 FIP, 0.25 WPA/LI
ROOGY: Chad Bradford - 2.28 BB/9, 3.23 K/9, 3.73 FIP, 0.78 WPA/LI

The Rays have decided that they’re willing to sacrifice command for dominance, creating a bullpen of guys who miss both the strike zone and bats with regularity, and succeed by keeping the ball in the park. They’ve also done a great job of giving Joe Maddon options at the end of ballgames, as he has lots of weapons depending on what he needs in a given at bat.

Bradford and Miller are same-handed specialists, perfect for neutralizing premium hitters in high leverage situations. Bradford’s extreme groundball nature also makes him the obvious pick for when a double play is necessary or there’s a runner at third with less than two out and you don’t want to give up the sac fly.

Balfour is the pleasant surprise, dominating the middle and late innings and racking up the strikeouts - he’s effective against hitters from both sides of the plate and can get you throw a middle of the order, even if it’s loaded with left and right handed bats. Howell is like Balfour from the left side, just with a few less strikeouts - his unique repertoire out of the pen also allows him to pitch multiple innings and not have to be used as a specialist.

Wheeler and Percival are the grizzled veterans, the experienced guys who Maddon can lean on while avoiding a controversy about going to unproven players in high leverage situations. While Percival’s FIP isn’t good, thanks to his extremely poor home run rate, he’s actually a pretty good candidate to get the cheap saves when the team leads by more than one, due to his extreme flyball nature. Because he’s constantly giving up flyballs, his balls in play are more likely to become outs, and if one happens to leave the yard without anyone on base, it’s not a big problem. He’s not a great closer, but he’s better than his FIP would indicate.

Forget what the talking heads tell you - the Rays bullpen is a strength, not a weakness. If you’re looking for a team that can win because they’re able to pitch well from the 6th-9th inning in October, Tampa should be among the first teams you like. Their bullpen is tremendous and setup very well for playoff baseball.

I have to admit that I have not been a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ moves in recent years, but things are beginning to change. The Manny Ramirez deal, which the Pirates were involved in as the third team in, netted the organization some interesting players, as did the Xavier Nady trade with the New York Yankees.

After dealing with two powerhouse AL East teams, the Pirates made a smaller deal with another team in the division, the Toronto Blue Jays. The Pirates sent underachieving Jose Bautista, a former Rule 5 player who was playing at Triple-A and is eligible for arbitration after the season, to the Jays for a player to be named later. Bautista will help fill in for the perennially-injured Scott Rolen at third base.

The player-to-be-named-later was named yesterday, and it was Triple-A catcher Robinzon Diaz. I don’t like the trade from the Jays’ perspective because general manager J.P. Ricciardi - once again - sold low on a player. Diaz is a bad-ball hitter who has excellent hand-eye coordination and is a .300-plus career hitter (.306 in seven seasons), albeit with no power. He had been struggling at Triple-A, but had also missed a good portion of the season due to a severe ankle sprain.

Diaz was made expendable for Toronto because of the emergence of catcher Brian Jeroloman (Triple-A), and J.P. Arencibia (Double-A), both of whom were drafted and acquired under the Ricciardi tenure, while Diaz was not (Ricciardi seems to have a large bias for his own players).

The soon-to-be 25 year old catcher is very athletic and can play just about any where but shortstop and center field. He has an average arm for a catcher and pretty good catching skills, but his game calling has been criticized by Jays’ minor league pitchers. He should make a great third-string catcher and back-up at third base and second base.

Diaz will not be a superstar but he will be a solid addition to a National League club in rebuilding mode. With both of Toronto’s catching facing free agency this winter, he is also someone that organization could have used more than an arbitration-eligible utility player who cannot hit above .250.

When the Braves traded Mark Teixeira to the Angels for, among other assets, Casey Kotchman, the analytic world of the baseball media went into a frenzy. Some analysts wondered how the Braves could get “so little” for one of the best bats and gloves in the game. Others argued that the very attractive contract of Casey Kotchman as well as his glove and potential evened the transaction out. And, I’m sure Steve Phillips dug out five at-bats of Teixeira’s playoff performance in college to say that he wouldn’t help the Angels due to poor post-season play.

Regardless, since joining the Angels, he-with-the-hard-name-to-spell has been on a tear. In 23 games out in LaLa of Anaheim-land, Mark has gone 32-83 with 7 home runs, 15 walks, and just 10 strikeouts. Put together, this results in a gaudy slash line of .386/.485/.675, an OPS of 1.160. His stretch has been so good that his seasonal OPS has actually risen from .902 to .941 in just 23 games.

On the flipside, Kotchman has not been performing too well on the offensive, going just 11-70 in his first 20 games. His .157/.259/.214 slash line as a Brave, coupled with the ridiculous numbers Teix has been putting up will cause some to look solely at the win-now aspect of this trade. This isn’t necessarily “wrong” as the ultimate goal in the eyes of many is to win a world series. If Teixeira can help the Angels win the world series then it will be quite hard to convince a fan of theirs that the trade didn’t work out, even if they are unable to resign him.

If we know anything about hot or cold streaks, we know that they have very little predictive ability. For all we know, these numbers could switch in the month of September, Kotchman will become a national celebrity, and Frank Wren will have a Schuerholz moment. Overall, though, this seems to be an example of the Angels understanding this could be their year, putting some eggs in the Teix basket, and praying it pays dividends.

They didn’t need Teixeira to make the playoffs, and with a 17-game lead in the division, they could probably rest him all of September to keep his legs fresh for the… oh, right, this is baseball, nevermind. But, we all know how this trade will really be judged. Since they didn’t need him to make the playoffs, it means they got him to aid them in the playoffs… which in turn means he better perform well in the playoffs or people will have fits.