Every winter, major league teams spend a lot of money on free agent pitchers. It doesn’t even matter if those pitchers are good or not - because they’ve survived at least six years in the majors to achieve free agency, they receive the proven veteran label, and teams fight for the right to lean on that kind of experience. One of the main reasons we’re told that veteran starters are so important is because young pitching is too inconsistent and unpredictable, and having proven veterans on your staff prevents the kind of disaster performances that scared minor league kids can give.

Now, with that in mind, here’s a list of the worst pitchers in baseball this season, sorted by WPA.

Miguel Batista, -2.86 WPA
Brett Myers, -2.62 WPA
Ian Snell, -2.54 WPA
Barry Zito, -2.20 WPA
Andrew Miller, -2.04 WPA

Zito, of course, signed the largest contract in history for a free agent pitcher. Batista signed a 3 year, $24 million deal before the 2007 season. Myers signed a 3 year, $25 million contract that bought out his final arbitration years and his first year of free agency. Snell signed a 3 year, $9 million deal to buy out his first few arbitration years and gave Pittsburgh team options that could eliminate his initial free agent season.

Andrew Miller is the only unproven youngster of the bunch.

Last winter was a perfect example of this phenomenon. Carlos Silva, Kenny Rogers, and Livan Hernandez were paid a combined $25 million for the 2008 season (and Silva was given a lot more beyond that). Those three are being outpitched by every inexperienced minor leaguer their team has brought up this season.

Need more evidence? The Twins traded away Johan Santana and let Silva leave via free agency, replacing them with unproven youngsters Nick Blackburn and Glen Perkins. The Twins team ERA has gone down after losing their two veteran horses, and they’re contending on the strength of a pitching staff of inexperienced youngsters. The Mets and Mariners, the two recipients of these proven veterans, have had disappointing first halves.

The idea that championship clubs are built on the backs of proven veteran starters is a massive myth, perpetuated by out of touch old men and the equally outdated writers to talk to them. “Proven veteran” has become a synonym for “old and crappy”, and as better front offices take hold in MLB, we’ll see teams that cling to these cliches continue to finish in last place, shocked that the experience they built their team around failed to bring them success.

As Dave noted early yesterday morning, the Joe Blanton-to-the-Phillies trade is one that fans of the Phightins—like me—are not going to be in favor of for years to come. It’s not that Blanton is a bad pitcher, or that a guy like Adrian Cardenas is a lock to become a superstar middle-infielder, but rather that the Phillies gave up two of their top prospects for a back-end of the rotation pitcher. From living in Philadelphia and watching the local broadcasts and such it seems to me that those in favor of this trade feel the way they do because Blanton is “new.” If these same fans watched Blanton intently over the last year and a half or so I have a funny feeling their dispositions would not be as sunny.

Add in the facts that Kentucky Joe dominated the Phillies lineup a couple of weeks ago, that he “won” 30 games in 2006-07, and that Adam Eaton stinks and it becomes very easy to see how fans could be manipulated into thinking this was the right trade to make.

One form of this manipulation really irked my family yesterday, however, in that some writers and reporters tried to justify the trade with the clause “if you remove Blanton’s X worst starts, his ERA is …” I’ve seen differing quotes, involving Blanton’s 3.87 ERA sans-three bad starts, or even his 3.58 ERA sans-four bad starts. Well, you just cannot do that. My brother, who covers the Phillies at MVN.com, offered this take, which is essentially the entire point of this post:

“Todd Zolecki wrote on Philly.com that Blanton actually has a 3.58 ERA if you take away his worst four starts. That’s great, but you don’t merely take away four starts to try to justify a trade. Heck, if you take away Adam Eaton’s worst four starts, his ERA would be 4.06! Has Eaton been a pitcher who deserves an ERA nearly in the 3’s this season? No. Has he been effective at all? No. So let’s not cherry-pick stats.”

You can’t simply remove numbers to justify anything. As has been discussed at length this season, the last three years or so should be quoted when discussing a player’s true talent level. If these same writers wish to justify the trade, perhaps it would serve them wise to note that Blanton’s current ERA is worse than his pre-season projection, and that he is expected to be in the 3.77 range over the remainder of the season… not that his numbers would be better if we take away the worst starts, or that he has performed well against NL East teams in a total of four or five starts in his career.

Overall, we don’t know if the Phillies are done dealing. Maybe they turn around and send the perhaps-overrated Carlos Carrasco and fellow top-tier prospect Antonio Bastardo for Erik Bedard, which would give them a rotation of: Cole Hamels, Erik Bedard, Jamie Moyer, Joe Blanton, and Kyle Kendrick, with Brett Myers also in the fold. From what I’ve come to learn, however, regarding Pat Gillick and his “approach” on his way out the door, it really does seem Blanton is supposed to be the prized acquisition to keep the Mets at bay.

But then again, maybe he IS what the Phillies need to keep the Mets at bay, because as many other Philadelphia columnists have noted, Blanton has pitched 15 scoreless innings against the Mets in his career… (sighs and hopes readers pick up on the sarcasm of small sample sizes and cherry-picked stats).

In 1995, I was a 10-year old sprout who loved the game but failed to truly grasp the rammifications of baseball’s labor strike. It constituted the major news story leading into the season, but not the only one. The other big news that year involved a Japanese pitcher named Hideo Nomo, who was in the process of becoming the first such player to permanently relocate to the major leagues. He would not be the first Japanese-born player in the major leagues, but rather the first to permanently leave Japan for streets paved in gold.

Nomo utilized a contractual loophole after his 1994 season in Japan that stipulated players who retired were free to play wherever. This loophole paved the way for Nomo playing in America, which is largely considered to have further paved the way for future Japanese-born major league players.

That 1995 season would be an incredible one for Nomo, as he baffled hitters en route to a Rookie of the Year win. Adding to the circus surrounding each of his starts was his funky windup. Not only had many fans never seen a foreign player of this magnitude, his pitching motion looked borderline insane when stacked up next to the vanilla “hands over head” delivery thought of as the industry standard. Nomo finished 4th in WPA/LI that year, behind just Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, and Mike Mussina, and kept hitters at bay to the tune of a 2.54 ERA/2.88 FIP and 1.06 WHIP.

In 1996 and 1997 he still posted quality numbers, including a no-hitter in ‘96 at Coors Field, but as hitters began to figure him out, his windup became less puzzling and he lost some effectiveness. His ERA and FIP had increased in each of those first three seasons; his WHIP shot up from 1.06 to 1.37; he gave up more home runs on average each year; and his ability to strand baserunners lessened in each subsequent season.

It then came as little surprise that 1998 turned out to be his worst season to date, stranding just 69.5% of baserunners and getting off to such a poor start that the Dodgers shipped him to the Mets for the not necessarily exciting package of Greg McMichael and Dave Mlicki. Following below average production from June 4 until season’s end, the Mets released Nomo in spring training of the 1999 season. The Cubs picked him up, but following a few minor league starts they had a clash of opinion: Hideo wanted to pitch in the majors and the Cubs felt he wasn’t ready. After refusing to make another minor league start the Cubs released him towards the end of April. The Brewers signed him for the remainder of the season, which incidentally involved his lowest K/9 and highest HR/9. His WHIP stayed stagnant at 1.42, but luckily he was able to strand 73.1% of runners, a significant increase from the year prior.

He and the Brewers clashed in contract negotiations following the season and the Phillies soon claimed him off waivers. The Nomo in Philadelphia experiment lasted 24 hours, when they could do no better in negotiations than the Brewers. All told, Nomo eventually signed with the Tigers for the 2000 season. His 4.74 ERA, 4.79 FIP, 4.22 BB/9, and career highs 1.47 WHIP and 1.47 HR/9 did very little to make the move look worthwhile and, at season’s close, Nomo again found himself without a job. He had played in the major leagues for six seasons now and had been a member of six different franchises.

He tossed another no-hitter as a member of the Red Sox in 2001 and posted his best numbers in the last couple of seasons—including a 10.0 K/9—but nowhere near his 1995-1996 seasons. Following his tenure in Beantown he returned “home” to Los Angeles, where his 2002 and 2003 seasons seemed very reminiscent of those initial years. In 67 starts over those two seasons, Nomo posted a 3.24 ERA, 4.17 FIP, 1.29 WHIP, and 79% strand rate. His ability to strike hitters out had diminished (7.59 K/9) but he proved to be effective enough to limit any threats pointed in his direction. In 2004, however, Nomo was officially done, regardless of whether or not he realized it.

His strand rate dropped from 79% to 59%, which looks even worse given that he accrued a 1.75 WHIP. Allowing over two home runs per nine innings with a K/BB ratio below 1.30, Nomo had lost all semblances of effectiveness at the major league level. The Rays, Yankees, White Sox, and Royals all took flyers on the former Rookie of the Year from 2005-2008, but an inability to get hitters out is not one that should be on the resume of any pitcher.

Nomo’s story is exactly the kind that will leave a sour taste in the mouths of some fans due to his poor performance in recent years. However, in my eyes, his is a success story, even if from a relative standpoint. No matter how old I get, when looking back upon a childhood built largely on baseball, I will always remember attempting to emulate his funky windup on the playground and the excitement that hinged upon every pitch thrown in those first few seasons.

Coming to the ballpark on April 27th, Carlos Delgado was the scorn of New York. He was hitting .186/.276/.256 with just four extra base hits in his first 98 plate appearances of 2008. Coming on the heels of his .258/.333/.448 mark last year, and in his age 36 season, the “Delgado is finished” bandwagon got full in a hurry. I even jumped on, noting that his disappearing power was a classic sign of an aging player who just didn’t have anything left to contribute.

Most people suggested that the Mets begin looking for Delgado’s replacement, because the team needed a real power hitter to keep pace in the NL East, and he just wasn’t going to be able to get the job done. We were all wrong.

Since April 27th, Delgado’s hit .276/.353/.536 with 34 extra base hits (nearly half of his 73 total hits since then), including his July surge that has him posting a 1.212 OPS since the beginning of the month. He’s absolutely torching the ball right now, and looks anything but finished.

Delgado’s resurgence is yet another data point in favor of the belief that we simply have a long way to go before we can identify a player who really has “fallen off a cliff” ahead of time. Both visual evidence and trend analysis suggested that the grim reaper may have come for his power during the off season, but it just wasn’t true. Delgado was slumping, and slumps happen regardless of how young or old a player is. However, we have pre-written narratives about what slumps mean when they happen to young players (he’s not ready for the majors, he’s getting exposed the second time around the league, etc…) and when they happen to old players (he’s done), but we need to remember that those narratives aren’t based in as much reality as we would like to believe.

I’m speaking to myself as much as I am to any of you. While the tools we have are useful in predicting the future, we have to remember their limitations and not jump to conclusions that can’t be supported by evidence.

We’ve been looking at the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league system this week and have highlighted some interesting prospects, including top pitching prospects like Jess Todd and Adam Ottavino. As we all know, pitching is a highly-sought-after commodity in Major League Baseball and the St. Louis organization has its fair share of arms that have yet to make an appearance in the big leagues, including Clayton Mortensen and P.J. Walters.

Mortensen was the organization’s supplemental first round selection out of Gonzaga University in 2007. The sinker/slider pitcher has a low 90s fastball, but it’s his ability to keep the ball on the ground that really improves his prospect status. Prior to 2008, Mortensen had a ground-out-to-air-out ration higher than 3.00. So far this season he has a ratio of 2.08 over two minor league stops. He began the season in Double-A and allowed 59 hits in 59 innings with 22 walks and 48 strikeouts. Mortensen was promoted to Triple-A and has allowed 42 hits in 41 innings with 21 walks and 25 strikeouts. Despite his solid stuff, Mortensen’s numbers have just been OK this season, which might suggest a move to the bullpen is in his future, unless he can significantly improve his third pitch - a change-up (which might also help against left-handed batters who are collectively hitting .342 against him).

Walters also began his season in Double-A before a promotion to Triple-A. At Springfield, Walters allowed 35 hits in 36 innings with eight walks and 34 strikeouts. He also allowed five home runs. After a promotion to Memphis, Walters has allowed 81 hits in 72 innings with 31 walks and 70 strikeouts. Walters was originally an 11th round selection out of the University of South Alabama in 2006. The right-hander’s fastball sits around the mid- to high-80s but he features a trick pitch, which is a cross between a change-up and a screwball. His breaking ball is a below average pitch, which significantly clouds his future outlook as a starting pitcher. You cannot count Walters out, though, as he is succeeding in Triple-A in just his second full minor league season.

So, last night, the Phillies traded top prospect Adrian Cardenas, solid prospect Josh Outman, and long shot prospect Matthew Spencer to Oakland in return for Joe Blanton. Cardenas is the best second base prospect in the game and, in my view, Philadelphia’s best minor league talent, so in parting with him and the potentially useful Outman, the cost to acquire Blanton was fairly high. Is he going to push them over the top and help them hold off the Mets down the stretch?

Let’s take a look at Blanton’s skills in graph form.

His strengths and weaknesses are pretty clear - he has well above average command, pounding the strike zone but not missing bats. He’s a classic pitch-to-contact starter with a very slight groundball tendency, whose approach is to put the ball in play and let hitters get themselves out. There’s a lot of pitch to contact starters out there, but most of them haven’t experienced the same kind of run prevention success that Blanton has. The main reason can be best seen through the following chart:

Blanton’s allowed less than 1.0 HR/9 in each of the last three years, including a 0.63 HR/9 that ranked 11th lowest in baseball last year. The guys ahead of him were almost universally extreme groundball pitchers (except Chris Young, who pitches in Petco Park), which is intuitive - its hard to hit a groundball over the wall. But since Blanton isn’t really an extreme groundball guy, his home run prevention over the last few years is a bit surprising. In fact, his HR/FB rates are shockingly low.

2005: 9.6%
2006: 6.8%
2007: 6.5%
2008: 8.0%

Oakland Coliseum is a tough place to hit the ball out of the park, so part of these low rates are explainable as a park effect, but not to this extreme. Over the last two and a half years, Blanton has consistently beaten his projection for what we’d expect his HR/FB rate to be, even when we include the park factor into the equation.

If you think this is a sustainable skill, you’re probably pretty bullish on his ability to rebound to his 2007 form and return to above average starter status, especially with the move to the weaker NL. After all, his 4.11 FIP suggests that his 4.96 ERA is mostly bad luck, and Philly may have bought low on the 27-year-old.

However, there’s a pretty good mountain of evidence that shows that pitchers have little control over their HF/FB rate, and it varies significantly on a year to year basis. If you think (as I do) that Blanton’s low HR/FB rates the last couple of years were more of an outlier than a skill he’s going to take to Philadelphia with him, then you’re a bit more bearish on his future. In general, pitchers whose performance is built on a low HR/FB rate don’t have the same consistent success that pitchers who control the strike zone, and a move from Oakland to Philadelphia could exacerbate the regression in HR/FB rate that Blanton likely has coming.

For the price they paid, the Phillies should have gotten a borderline all-star, but from my perspective, Blanton’s more of a back-end innings eater who isn’t likely to perform in the future as well as he has in the past. This looks like the kind of trade the Phillies fans will be looking back on with frustration for years to come.

Just like last year, I’m making a post for the 2008 All-Star game that includes the Win Probability graph and stats since it’s about to go poof from the site.

The St. Louis Cardinals organization is already blessed with a talented backstop, but there is another talented catcher on his way to the big league club in the near future.

Yadier Molina, already in his fifth Major League season, is having a career year and just turned 26. He is currently hitting .312/.365/.399 with four homers in 276 at-bats. He has also walked 24 times with 14 strikeouts. Molina has improved for two years in a row, which helps to suggest that this is not a fluke season, as he heads into his playing prime. Defensively, there aren’t many, if any, catchers who offer his all-around skills behind the dish.

Molina’s current back-up is light-hitting veteran catcher Jason LaRue, who is having a ‘rejuvenated’ season at the age of 34 after hitting below .200 each of the last two years. LaRue, a free agent at the end of the season, is hitting .242/.339/.400 in just 95 at-bats. At Triple-A, minor league veteran Mark Johnson is a solid defensive catcher who could probably offer just about as much with the bat as LaRue and possibly more defensively.

Also at Triple-A is the Cardinals’ top catching prospect Bryan Anderson. The 21-year-old is still a little rough behind the plate (although he calls a great game) but you cannot argue with his offensive potential. He began the season at Double-A and hit .388/.412/.525 with two homers in 80 at-bats. Anderson was then promoted to Triple-A where he has hit .320/.396/.433 with one homer in 150 at-bats. He also has 18 walks and 23 strikeouts. He was originally selected in the fourth round out of high school in the 2005 amateur draft. Anderson’s lack of power is the only real smudge on his prospect status and he should be ready to apprentice with Molina as soon as the Cardinals decide to cut ties with LaRue.

How many times have you been watching a game or engaged in conversations with fellow fans in which the topic of velocity differential between pitches and its effects comes up? The idea in that tremendous offspeed pitches can enhance a fastball has somewhat grown into the conventional wisdom. It may seem odd at first, but throwing a devastating changeup can make an 89 mph fastball feel like a 93 mph fastball, perhaps even higher.

From a pure logic standpoint it makes sense. Consider this scenario: You are standing on the middle of the road and five cars are driving towards you, one at a time, at say 15 mph, from a great distance. But then the sixth car moves at around 30 mph. You aren’t very likely to know exactly how fast that sixth car is but it is going to seem much faster than its actual speed due to what had previously been experienced.

It was mentioned in the comments section of Dave’s article about Jamie Moyer that perhaps he has been able to strike hitters out or simply continue to get hitters out at his age, with a lack of tangible skills, due to his relative velocity; that is, the difference between the velocity of his fastball and his changeup confuses hitters and deems him a bit more effective than we might give him credit for.

Here are the top ten fastball-changeup dropoffs this year, using the BIS data, and their velocity dropoffs:

Mike Mussina, NYY: 15.8 mph
Vicente Padilla, Tex: 12.3 mph
Zack Greinke, KC: 11.9 mph
Johan Santana, NYM: 11.5 mph
Tim Lincecum, SF: 11.3 mph
Edinson Volquez, Cin: 11.0 mph
Oliver Perez, NYM: 11.0 mph
Javier Vazquez, CHW: 10.9 mph
Barry Zito, SF: 10.6 mph
Tim Hudson, Atl: 10.6 mph

And the bottom five:

Brian Bannister, KC: 4.3 mph
Derek Lowe, LAD: 5.1 mph
Greg Maddux, SD: 5.4 mph
Shaun Marcum, Tor: 5.7 mph
Josh Beckett, Bos: 5.8 mph

Of those in the top ten, the only two that throw below 90 mph, on average, are Mussina and Zito, who clock in around the 84-86 mark. Mussina has been in a relative velocity league of his own this year, throwing an 85.9 mph fastball and a 70.1 mph changeup. Now, pitchers don’t follow a uniform routine of changeup usage: some will throw it much more often than others. Mussina only throws his 6.9% of the time whereas Johan Santana has done so with 26.8% of his pitches.

Looking at pitchers who throw their changeup at least 10% of the time, Johan finds himself atop the relative dropoff leaderboard and new names like Cole Hamels and Brandon Webb join him. The sample of players is likely too small from just one year to find any type of significance or trend within the data, and even then, a regression amongst others would need to be run as a starting point to find what type of effects this dropoff has, which I could perhaps get into in the near-future, but if this relative velocity really matters as much as our logic and commentators suspect, then it should be fairly easy to find a meaningful correlation between dropoff and some form of success.

Ever since Dennis Springer retired after the 2002 season, Tim Wakefield has stood as the game’s sole remaining knuckleball pitcher with a secure role in the major leagues. Charlie Haeger has bounced back and forth between the White Sox and their Triple-A affiliate in Chicago, but his inconsistency kept him from locking down a role in the windy city.

Don’t look now, but Wakefield may finally have someone to pass the torch too - R.A. Dickey spent the last few weeks leading up to the all-star break attempting to force the Mariners to keep him in their rotation. Of course, only in an organization as screwed up as Seattle’s would a guy with a 4.13 FIP in 61 innings of work be trying to cling to a role in the starting rotation for a team that is headed nowhere, but it looks like even the Mariners might not be able to screw this up.

The M’s selected Dickey in the Rule 5 draft last December, and then worked out a deal with Minnesota allowing them to option him back to Triple-A to start the season. He cleared waivers before the trade could be consummated, and right now, 29 teams have to be wondering what they were thinking.

Dickey’s transformation from a traditional pitcher to a knuckler is paying dividends, as he’s pitched quite well for the Mariners since he was called up. His 1.5 K/BB rate is pretty much in line with what established knuckleball pitchers run, as their success is derived more from their ability to cause weak contact, limiting their hits on balls in play. Dickey’s .301 BABIP may appear right at league average, but when you consider that the Mariners have had the league’s worst defense, that’s actually something of an accomplishment.

It’s too early to call Dickey the next Wakefield - and at 33, he’s not exactly a spring chicken - but he is showing some promise with the knuckleball, and is giving us a reason to hope that there will be another to carry on the art of the dancing pitch after Wakefield decides to hang it up.