It’s been nine months since the trade that brought Ryan Theriot to St. Louis, and the shortstop picture for the Cardinals is no clearer today than it was then. With their playoff hopes all but officially extinct, the prospect of another offseason spent looking for up-the-middle help looms large.

The trio of players who have garnered playing time at short for the Cards this season have been unimpressive, producing a combined 0.4 WAR in approximately a season’s worth of plate appearances. Theriot is an obvious non-tender candidate, while newly acquired Rafael Furcal will almost certainly have his $12 million option declined and become a free agent at the end of the season. This leaves the Cards with only Tyler Greene as an internal option, and the free agent market for shortstops is about as thin (the obvious exception being Jose Reyes, who the Cardinals have almost no hope of signing if they expect to keep Chris Carpenter and/or Albert Pujols). While the Cardinals will likely either give Greene a shot to hold down the job, or pick up another bargain during the free agency period, I’d like to propose that the Cardinals consider a radical alternative that could provide the team with a definitive edge: Albert Pujols.

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From Opening Day to April 20th, Red Sox pitchers posted a 7.14 ERA when Jarrod Saltalamacchia was behind the plate versus a 2.40 ERA when Jason Varitek started. The resulting hubbub about this split made one fact extremely clear, when comparing the influence of different catchers, sample size is really really important.

Already by June 24th, Varitek and Salty’s split has been greatly reduced, with pitchers now throwing a 3.44 ERA to the veteran captain and a 4.36 ERA to the new guy. I would bet that these numbers will continue to converge as the season drags on, but even after 182 games it’s unlikely that either catcher will have enough innings to statistically test whether one is calling a better game. This is the difficulty of assessing catcher performance: comparing catchers between teams is near impossible (because the pitching staffs are different), and comparing catchers within teams is difficult (because sample sizes are small and different pitchers use different catchers). Nevertheless, many still believe that catchers do influence pitcher performance. Where can we find the data to support this hypothesis?

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Last year, Manny Acta made a splash by dropping Grady Sizemore to second in the batting order. This year, he’s considering moving him back to leadoff. Is either the right move? And how should the rest of the lineup look?

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In spite of a questionable off-season approach to their designated hitter situation and a deadline deal that didn’t fill that vortex of suck, the Chicago White Sox are in first place on the backs of Alex Rios, Alexei Ramirez, Paul Konerko, and most of the pitching staff. After facing Baltimore for one more tonight, they will be going into a critical 3 game series against division rival Minnesota. It doesn’t get us anywhere to look at the past, so the question is what can the White Sox do to maximize the value of the players they have going forward?

The most glaring weakness is still the DH spot. Mark Kotsay has received the majority of the playing time here, and he has also been the team’s least valuable hitter. Kotsay has posted a slash line of .228/.305/.378, with a wOBA of .299. Kotsay’s –0.7 WAR is not only the worst on the team, but tied for fourth worst in the MLB among players with 280 or more PAs. It’s clear that Kotsay isn’t getting the job done, but who is the most viable choice to replace him?

Young Cuban slugger Dayan Viciedo is an interesting option. He’s posting a .361 wOBA (.310/.310/.521) in his first 71 PAs. On the surface, that looks great, but his .333 BABIP is unsustainable for someone as… um… husky as Viciedo. Also, his walk rate of 0% is going to be exploited soon enough (Viciedo’s already swinging at 39.8% of balls outside of the strike zone). It’s clear that even with his incredible power, he’s just not ready for the Majors, and would likely be eaten alive in the playoffs.

Mark Teahen is nearing the completion of his rehab stint in Charlotte, and could be back with the club in the next week. The .255/.340/.387 (.317 wOBA) line he put up while starting at third base isn’t the most stunning, but against RHP he’s hitting .287/.376/.444 (.363 wOBA).

Andruw Jones has played in the DH role some, while also serving as the fourth outfielder. Andruw’s .204/.312/.444 line gives him a .336 wOBA, placing him in the neighborhood of being a league average hitter. Jones benefits from facing lefties, against whom he posts a line of .235/.350/.515 (.376 wOBA).

So based on those numbers, the answer to the DH scenario appears to be a Teahen/Jones platoon, right?

Wrong.

Well, half right. The White Sox currently have a right fielder who, while being a good hitter, is just terrible defensively. I’m of course referring to Jermaine Dye Carlos Quentin. Quentin’s line of .232/.328/.488 (.352 wOBA) is solid in it’s own right, but Quentin’s a great candidate to improve that line, thanks to the impending regression of his .213 BABIP. Quentin’s defense in the past two seasons has been quantifiably terrible. Back to back UZR/150s of –25.2 and –34.2 (the former in LF) have shown that Quentin can’t get the job done, and that he’s a DH (or maybe a first baseman, but that’s a discussion for 2011).

Teahen, meanwhile, has a UZR/150 of just –2.0 in 261 games in right. Jones, in 42 games this year, has a UZR/150 of 8.6. A platoon of these two players also would help the oft-injured Quentin stay healthy, keeping his dangerous bat in the lineup.

The White Sox are in a position that most didn’t think they could be in after the first two months of the season. The team has had some breaks, but if they’re going to compete with a very good Twins team, they have to utilize their players effectively. Getting Quentin out of the outfield and Mark Kotsay out of the lineup? Well, that’s just smart baseball.

I decided to do a little research after watching the Braves lose to the Mets last night in a game in which the Braves’ offense had a) four extra-base hits to the Mets’ two; b) four singles to the Mets’ three; c) four walks to the Mets’ three; and d) five strikeouts to the Mets’ seven.  After grounding into three more double plays, the Braves are now second in the Majors in GIDP with 36 on the year.  One of the culprits was Yunel Escobar, who I seem to recall GIDP-ing an awful lot.  So I looked into it.

I was right.  After I read that Escobar grounded into 21 double plays in 2009 and 24 in 2008, which was the highest total in the N.L. for those two years, I decided to examine the batted ball data on Fangraphs, and my findings were telling (click on the link and then click on GB% to sort by that).  In 2009 Yunel was one of the most prolific groundball hitters in all of baseball.  More than 50% of his balls in play were on the ground, good for 23rd in all of MLB.  And he hit the ball on the ground at an even higher rate in 2008.

Here’s the interesting thing: If you look at the folks ahead of him on this list, every single one of them are top-of-the-order hitters for their teams.  In fact most of them are leadoff men.  It makes sense for Scott Podsednik, Jacoby Ellsbury, Michael Bourn, Elvis Andrus, Denard Span, Emilio Bonifacio, or Carl Crawford to hit the ball on the ground because of their speed.  Not only are they attempting to get infield hits, but also if there is a man on base in front of them, there’s very little danger in them grounding into a double play.  Bonifacio, for example, only grounded into 5 DP’s all year last year in 509 plate appearances, despite a high GB%.  But Yunel Escobar is no burner, and he’s also batting with men on base a whole lot more than those guys due to his position in the batting order.

Yunel has been very successful at the plate the last two years (especially last year), and he may yet improve in his age 27 season.  There’s no need to try to change his swing or his approach at the plate just because of the GIDPs.  That kind of tinkering is almost always counter-productive.  OK, so he hits a ton of groundballs and gets on base a lot, without much power.  Perfect, let’s hit him leadoff!  Those are precisely the qualities we look for in a leadoff man.  If he repeats his .377 OBP from last year while grounding into 25 DP’s and hitting in the 6 or 7 hole in the lineup, it’s such a total waste.  The kid has major on-base skills, but not run-producer skills (career slugging%: .416).  So, he should hit at the top of the lineup where he’ll get more plate appearances, where him getting on base is a bigger asset, and where he’s less likely to bat with as many runners on base and thus less likely to GIDP.  It’s a win-win-win.

If that isn’t a strong enough case to move Escobar up in the batting order in Atlanta, then add this: Nate McLouth has hit .237/.342/.386 in 514 plate appearances as a Brave.  And Jordan Schafer, who is the long-term solution in center field for Atlanta barring a major trade, is currently regaining his form in AAA as he comes back from wrist surgery, and isn’t ready to play every day in the big leagues, much less to hit leadoff.  Regardless of what the Braves do with CF as the year goes on, it doesn’t appear that their CF will be their leadoff man.  So based on that and the aforementioned batted ball data, why not try their shortstop?