Either everyone wanted Adam LaRoche last season, or no one did. It’s hard to tell. LaRoche started the year with the Pirates, and was traded to the Red Sox as the trade deadline was still on the horizon. 9 days later, Boston shipped him off to the Atlanta Braves, bringing LaRoche’s pre free agent career full circle.

LaRoche, a notoriously slow starter, ended the season with 25 homers to go along with a .277/.355/.488 line. He also had 83 RBI and 78 runs, and most importantly, 2 steals. His numbers are right in line with what one should expect from LaRoche, as he hit 25 HR and had an identical wOBA (.357) in 2008. The only year he hasn’t had a line drive percentage below 20% was his rookie year in 2004.

With LaRoche, MLB and fantasy teams know what they are getting: a .275 average with 20+ dingers and 80 RBI. No surprises here. Only problem is, the level of consistency he has is not always rewarded. Teams are more likely to go after a player with the upside for a better season than LaRoche can provide, even if it may come back to bite them in the end.

Because of this, LaRoche’s suitors this offseason will be limited. The most likely scenario is LaRoche going back to the Braves on a one or two-year deal. The Giants could also get in on the action if they decide to non-tender Ryan Garko and spend the bulk of their money in the left field market. After those two, it’s a crapshoot for LaRoche on the open market. I do not foresee any AL team pursuing LaRoche and envisioning him as their everyday first baseman.

If he leaves the Braves, his teammates will notice he is gone more off the field than on it. He was a part of the nice streak the Braves put together to end the year, but he is much better at the end of seasons, anyway. The Braves would likely replace him in house, and the numbers from whoever moves over to first will get a boost from extended playing time.

If LaRoche lands a starting gig, owners should prefer that it is with Atlanta. The talent surrounding him is better than that on the Giants, and the stadium is a little more power friendly. You know what you are getting with LaRoche, so make sure he’s starting before letting him sit on your bench next season.

After an outstanding half season in 2008, Texas Rangers first baseman Chris Davis generated quite a bit of buzz leading into fantasy drafts in 2009. Davis hit .285/.331/.549 with 17 homers and 55 RBI in 80 games during his rookie campaign in 2008, causing fantasy owners to salivate like Pavlov’s dog. Davis was so hyped, that his status as a sleeper disappeared quickly, and his ADP rose.

Davis was eligible at 1B and 3B in ‘09, and was drafted an average of 76th overall, good enough for seventh among 3B and 10th among 1B. Owners, such as myself, saw his raw power dominating in a deadly Texas lineup, and expected his average to hover around the .285 mark he posted in 2008.

What we didn’t see coming, was a devastating start to the 2009 season for Davis. In the first half of the season, Davis hit .202/.256/.415 with 15 homers. The power was still there, but he struck out 114 times in 277 plate appearances. Davis had always been a high strikeout hitter, with his career minor league rate at 25%, and a 29.8% rate in the bigs during ‘08. However a 41.2% rate for the first half was scary enough to force the Rangers to consider sending Davis to the minors to work out his problems.

Sure enough, a few days into July, Davis was optioned to Triple-A. He seemed to right the ship while he was there, hitting .327/.418/.521 in 44 games, striking out only 20% of the time and hitting 6 homers. The Rangers felt he was ready to give the bigs another shot, so they recalled him at the end of August. Upon returning, Davis hit .308/.338/.496 with 6 homers in a little over a month. He struck out 25.3% in the second half (36 in 142 PA), much more in line with his career averages. His power may have diminished, but he still drove in 26 runs in 36 games.

What helped bring Davis out of his funk was his ability to simply make contact with the ball. Before being sent down, he has a swing rate of 53.8% and a 22.6% whiff rate according to Trip Somers’ Pitch F/x tool. The same tool said he swung at 52.9% of his pitches after being recalled, with a 14% whiff rate. His opponents pitch selection remained constant in both cases, and after being recalled Davis put fastballs in play at twice the rate that he had before hand.

It all boils down to one question: What should I expect from Davis in 2010? I think that his second half numbers will transfer over into the start of 2010, with his home run rate rising closer to what it was in ‘08. To make a quick prediction, I would guess he hits ~.280 with 31 homers if he holds on to the full time 1B job. He may not get to play every day, with the Rangers likely to call up Justin Smoak and looking for a big RH in free agency that could plug the DH role, but I bet they try to find a way to get his bat into the lineup

Davis will be eligible at first base in every league, with added 3B eligibility in others. Due to a scary showing early on last year, he should be falling into a nice ADP where you should feel comfortable snatching him up and playing him everyday.

The 2009 Kansas City Royals were an offensive disaster. Collectively, K.C. batters compiled -66.2 Park-Adjusted Batting Runs, worst in the American League. The Royals continued to hack wildly at the dish, with the second-lowest walk rate in the Junior Circuit. Not coincidentally, the club posted the second-highest outside-swing percentage in the A.L.

There’s plenty of disappointment to go around. Curious trade acquisition Mike Jacobs was sub-replacement-level for the second consecutive season. Jose Guillen made $12M while being a full two wins below replacement-level. Would-be savior Alex Gordon was derailed by hip surgery.

Not all was lost, however. While many of his teammates were making outs at a dizzying pace, Billy Butler took steps toward becoming an All-Star-caliber hitter.

We chronicled Butler’s career last offseason, noting his stratospheric .336/.416/.561 minor league line. Kansas City’s 2004 first-round draft pick had a mild age-22 season in 2008 (.275/.324/.400, .318 wOBA), due mostly to a tepid performance against right-handers and a high groundball rate for a 6-2, 240 pound guy with minimal speed.

The future looked extremely bright for Butler, though, given his superb minor league track record. And in 2009, he began to show to strong secondary skills which made him a top prospect.

In 2008, Butler appeared to take a contact-oriented approach at the plate. He put the bat on the ball 93.3% of the time on pitches within the strike zone, well above the 88 percent MLB average. That led to a very low punch out rate (12.9 K%), but the contact might have come at the expense of some power. Butler posted a middle infielder-like .124 ISO, while going yard on just 8.2% of his fly balls hit.

Butler didn’t put much of a charge in those fly balls, with a .440 slugging percentage in 2008 (the A.L. average was .566).

In 2009, by contrast, Butler waited for his pitch more often. His P/PA increased from 3.6 to 3.9, with his first-pitch strike percentage dipping from 58.6% in ‘08 (right around the MLB average) to 53.6% in ‘09. Butler didn’t make as much contact within the strike zone (88.6 percent), which led to a higher K rate (16.9 percent). However, the 23 year-old did far more damage when he did connect.

Butler’s ISO jumped to .191, with his HR/FB rate climbing to 11.9 percent. He slugged .776 on fly balls (.603 A.L. average). Billy still hit more grounders than one would like to see (47.3 percent), but there are plenty of positives here.

Kansas City’s first baseman continued to annihilate lefties, with a 150 sOPS+ (sOPS+ compares a batter’s performance in a given spit to the league average; 100 is average for a hitter, below 100 is below-average and above 100 is above-average). But he was no slouch against right-handers either, with a 121 sOPS+. In other words, Butler was 50 percent better than the league average vs. southpaws, and 21 percent above the norm against righties.

His more restrained plate approach also led to more free passes. Butler increased his walk rate from 6.9 percent in 2008 to 8.7 percent this past year. That’s more in line with what we saw in the minors, when he drew a free pass in 11.5 percent of his PA.

Overall, Butler improved his wOBA to .369, while posting a .301/.362/.492 line. He’s not an elite option at first base (not when the MLB average at the position was .277/.362/.483 in 2009, but he could yet become an offensive force. Butler turns just 24 in April.

Target Butler on draft day. He could provide the punch of some more well-known first basemen, but at a lower price tag.

On July 1st, the following scrolled across the transaction wire:

Pittsburgh Pirates purchased the contract of outfielder Garrett Jones from Indianapolis of the International League (AAA).

Few, if any, in the baseball community so much as batted an eye. After all, Jones was a 28 year-old minor league slugger, a guy on the low end of the defensive spectrum who drifted through the Atlanta and Minnesota systems without distinguishing himself. He was a warm body for a team in transition.

As the 2009 season comes to a close, however, Jones has certainly caught the attention of Pirates fans looking to divert their attention from the whole…”longest consecutive losing season streak in professional sports” thing. Splitting time between the outfield corners and first base, Mr. Jones has crushed the horsehide to the tune of .297/.374/.581 in 345 plate appearances.

In his first extended look in the majors, Garrett has walked in 11.4 percent of his PA, with a mammoth .284 Isolated Power. Among batters with at least 300 trips to the plate, Jones places 7th in ISO. His whopping .402 wOBA puts him between Mark Teixeira and Manny Ramirez. He has even swiped 10 bags in 12 tries.

Jones has jolted fastballs like few others, with a run value of +2.26 per 100 pitches seen. That’s 10th among big league batters. The 6-4, 235 pound lefty batter actually has a positive value against all pitches seen on a regular basis: +0.19 vs. sliders, +1.23 vs. curveballs and +1.63 vs. changeups.

So, Jones has been a beast this summer. But the question is, where in the name of Shane Spencer did this outburst come from?

A 14th-round pick by the Braves in the 1999 amateur draft, Jones had a completely nondescript minor league track record entering this season. He spent three years in Rookie Ball, slugging .330. A-Ball went little better, with Jones posting OPS figures well under .700.

Garrett finally hit with authority in AA as a 23-year old in 2004 (.311/.356/.593), but any prospect momentum screeched to a halt with a lousy .244/.297/.445 line at AAA the following season. Jones spent five seasons at the AAA level, and none of them translated well to the highest level:

(major league equivalencies from Minor League Splits)

2005
Actual:.244/.297/.445
MLE: .213/.253/.376

2006
Actual: .238/.302/.430
MLE: .211/.265/.366

2007
Actual: .280/.334/.473
MLE: .242/.286/.395

2008
Actual: .279/.337/.484
MLE: .245/.291/.412

2009
Actual: .307/.348/.502
MLE:. 259/.291/.408

Despite spending half of a decade in AAA, Jones never dominated the level. His best work came recently, but those equivalencies basically painted him as Mike Jacobs circa 2009. Unless you’re Dayton Moore, that’s not very appealing.

Jones’ 2009 projections from CHONE, Oliver and ZiPS were similarly lukewarm:

CHONE: .259/.318/.451
Oliver: .242/.324/.398
ZiPS: .254/.304/.427

Where does Garret go from here? Because of his thunderous performance since his call-up, Jones is almost assured to enter the 2010 season with a clear shot at playing time. There’s little doubt that he won’t sustain this level of play. We have three months of out-of-this-world hitting, weighed against a decade’s worth of mundane numbers.

Fantasy owners would be best served by remaining skeptical. Not that Jones should be ignored, but his work this past summer eclipses his previous track record by a shocking margin. The best-case scenario would probably entail Jones retaining some of the gains he made in terms of working the count, while popping a healthy number of extra-base hits.

Given his larger body of work, the odds aren’t very good that Mr. Jones is gonna be a big star. But the Pirates would settle for a cheap, decent bat who can shift between first and the outfield corners.

Quick: raise your hand if you thought that Kendry Morales would be outslugging the man he replaced, Mark Teixeira, as the 2009 season entered its final quarter. Unless your name is Mama Morales, you’re either psychic or a compulsive liar.

Sure, Teixeira has been the better player overall, as a large advantage in on base percentage (.381 for Tex, .354 for Kendry) gives him a .393 wOBA to Morales’ .387. But the gap has been astoundingly small, given what most preseason projections envisioned:

Morales’ pre-season wOBA’s, by projection system:

Bill James: .340
CHONE: .327
Oliver: .333
ZiPS: .325

The league average wOBA is around .335, and pretty much every projection pegged the switch-hitting Cuban import as straddling the line between average and below-average. No system forecasted him for an OBP higher than James’ .327, and the highest slugging percentage portended by the four was also James’, at .456 (anecdotally, the James projections always seem to be rather optimistic for hitters).

And keep in mind, we’re talking about a position in first base where offensive might is not just a nice extra: it’s a job requirement. In 2008, the average first baseman posted a .352 OBP, with a .463 slugging percentage. The average of those four projection systems gave Morales a .331 wOBA, while the league average first baseman posted roughly a .360 wOBA (using an estimate of 1.75 X OBP + slugging percentage, divided by three, to convert OBP and slugging to wOBA). Over the course of 600 plate appearances, Kendry was thought to be 15 runs below average compared to the average first baseman.

The 26 year-old entered the year with a spotty major league track record, including a .249/.302/.408 line in 407 plate appearances from 2006-2008. Morales’ minor league line (.332/.373/.528) looks more promising, but it did come with a few caveats. Salt Lake (the AAA affiliate of the Angels) is a favorable offensive environment, inflating runs by 6 percent and homers by 7 percent as compared to a neutral ballpark, and Morales walked in just 5.4 percent of his PA at the AAA level.

Courtesy of Minor League Splits, here are Morales’ Major League Equivalencies from his ‘06 to ‘08 Salt Lake slugging:

2006: .261/.289/.410
2007: .278/.318/.383
2008: .276/.303/.427

Suffice it to say, Morales has made a mockery of those numbers, authoring a robust .309/.354/.587 triple-slash in 494 PA. He certainly hasn’t been some model of patience at the plate, walking in 7.2% of his PA and swinging at 31.2% of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone (25.1% MLB average). But, Kendry also hasn’t resembled some Francoeur-level hacker with an eyes-to-ankles strike zone, either. Morales is making a good deal of contact, with an 18.4 K% and an 89.1% contact rate on pitches within the zone (87.8% MLB average).

Has Morales been lucky on balls put in play? Not especially, according to Derek Carty’s simple expected batting average on balls in play calculator, which uses AB, HR, K’s, SB’s, grounders, fly balls and pop outs in addition to line drive percentage to spit out an XBABIP. Morales’ actual BABIP is .325, and his XBABIP is .317.

Kendry has cranked a homer on 17.8% of his fly balls hit, a rate which ranks in the top 25 among qualified hitters, and his .278 Isolated Power (slugging percentage minus batting average) places 9th amongst qualified batters. He’s handling fastballs (+0.87 runs per 100 pitches seen) and changeups (+1.67 runs/100) well, but throw him a yellow hammer at your own peril (+5.29 runs/100 against the curveball, tops in the majors).

Going forward, it would probably be wise to expect some degree of regression from Morales (ZiPS’ rest-of-season projections peg him to hit .296/.333/.510 the rest of the way). But, it’s rather difficult to poke any large holes in his 2009 campaign. He’s just beating the snot out of the baseball.

Morales is an example of why baseball is such an exciting (or, depending on your viewpoint, frustrating) sport. We had heaps of objective information that suggested he would be kind of a drag on L.A.’s playoffs hopes. Instead, he’s going 5-for-5 with a pair of dingers for a first-place club. Kendry might not be this good, but he putting to rest concerns that he wouldn’t meet the bar at baseball’s pre-eminent power position. Who knew?

When the season is over and people start producing Top Prospect rankings, Ike Davis will likely be in the middle of a top 100 list. That is not surprising for someone of his pedigree, a first-round pick in 2008, but it is nothing short of remarkable considering the start that Davis got off to in his professional debut.

On April 28th, of this season, Davis hit the first home run of his pro career. Up until that point he had been considered a bust. The Mets’ top draft pick last year, part of their reward for the Braves signing free agent Tom Glavine, they selected Davis for his power. Unfortunately, he went all 58 games he played last year and then 17 more in 2009 without putting a ball over the fence.

The lack of power was disturbing but the Mets remained bullish on Davis, no one more so than former Vice President of Player Development Tony Bernazard, who told Baseball America, “He’s coming along well for a player in his first full year. He’s a great defender and we believe he’ll hit for power. You can see it in how he’s hit a lot of doubles. And the best part is, he’s kept up while playing in every game.”

Starting on April 29th, Davis has hit 15 HR in 79 games. He started the year at St. Lucie in the Hi-A Florida State League and was promoted to Double-A (where you really want to see a collegiate first-round pick in his first full season in the minors) after he posted a .288/.376/.486 line in 59 games.

Facing more advanced pitching has not slowed Davis down any. After 40 games in the Double-A Eastern League, Davis has a .299/.379/.519 mark, with 8 HR in 154 at-bats. However, here we must remember park and league tendencies.

The Florida State League is a pitcher-friendly loop. Currently Chris Parmelee leads the league with 14 HR and Dominic Brown’s .517 is the top slugging mark. In the Eastern League Brennan Boesch has 24 HR and Brian Dopirak leads with a .576 slugging percentage. Furthermore, Binghamton is a good hitter’s park. From 2006-2008, Dan Szymborski had Binghamton with a 1.05 HR multiplier. Szymborski says, “when I use the term ‘multiplier’ I’m already taking into account road games, so the number does not have to sent hurdling halfway to 1.00 in order to apply to various minor league stats.”

Davis is playing better at his home park, but not to an alarming degree. Here are his home/road splits:

H – .308/.386/.538 with 4 HR in 78 ABs
R – .289/.372/.500 with 4 HR in 76 ABs

The lefty-swinging Davis does have a significant left/right split. This year at Binghamton it breaks down as follows:

LHP – .241/.317/.296 in 54 ABs
RHP – .330/.412/.640 in 100 ABs

Additionally, all eight of his HR have come versus RHP.

Davis also has both a high K% and an elevated BABIP. His 30.1 K percentage ranks 14th among all Eastern League players with at least 100 ABs and his .383 BABIP ranks eighth.

But after he put up a .652 OPS in rookie ball, these are welcome concerns. Coming into the year, Davis could not crack Baseball America’s Top 10 prospect list for the Mets (interestingly compiled by Adam Rubin), finishing behind Eddie Kunz, whose upside is seventh-inning set-up man. It was a scathing indictment of Davis’ pro debut.

But in a season where everything has gone wrong on the major league level, the Mets can at least take solace in the development of Davis. The 22-year old now has to be considered as a potential replacement for Carlos Delgado at first base, giving hope that the club can avoid the free agent route when they opt to replace their aging slugger.

Erik Manning did a fine job looking at the Scott Rolen-to-Cincinnati trade from a transactional standpoint, but fantasy managers might be interested in the prognosis for Rolen’s power in his new address. The same could be said of fantasy managers looking at Nick Johnson in Florida.

At first glance, Rolen should enjoy playing in Great American Ball Park. Though park factors aren’t always consistent from year to year, the Reds ballpark is consistently favorable to hitters. It has a 1.063 park factor for home runs this year, but last year that number was 1.23 and in 2007 it was the second-best park for power (with a whopping 1.351 park factor. In the three years before this year, the park consistently awarded over 20% more home runs than a neutral ballpark.

ZiPS RoS has Rolen down for a whopping four more home runs, though. 20% more than four is not very exciting. Is it possible that Rolen will see a more significant boost in power? His home runs per fly ball have been pretty stable for the past three years, hovering around 7%. His fly ball percentage has also been stable (around 40%), though lower than it was when he was more of a power hitter. In fact, his current 41.9% fly ball percentage and 6.3% home run per fly ball are his worst and second-worst marks in those respective categories.

The power is not coming back. Judging from the comments on R.J. Anderson’s recent article on Rolen it seems the power outage is part of a concerted effort to revamp his swing after his shoulder woes. At least his line drive gains seem for real (two straight years of improvement, and his current 25.2% would only be his second-best mark ever), and that park can help boost all his non-home run hits as well. He still gets a little boost with the move.

Nick Johnson’s move is in the wrong direction. He’s already currently sporting a slugging percentage below his on-base percentage, which is not an easy thing to do, and he’s moving from a neutral-to-offensive park to a known pitcher’s park in Florida.

At least, it used to be a pitcher’s park. “Land Shark” stadium is currently sporting a robust 1.182 park factor for home runs, ranking fourth in that category in the league, and 23 spots above Nationals Park and its .791 number. Is Johnson in line for a 30% power boost? Not so fast. The average park factor in Florida, from 2006-2008, was .91. Nationals park last year played to a .942 park factor for home runs over the full year.

Rolen is moving from an offense that ranks tenth in the league in runs to one that ranks 26th, so he’ll feel a hit in the runs and RBI categories that could undo any positive park effects. Johnson is moving from a team that ranks 20th in runs to one that ranks 17th and has negligible park effect differences. The unexciting conclusion is that these low-power bats will not gain much in their new homes.

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, Andy Marte was considered one of the best prospects in all the land. The Dominican third baseman signed with the Atlanta Braves back in 2000, and by the time 2004 season came to an end, few doubted that he was a future star.

Marte had the glowing scouting reports. In its 2005 Prospect Handbook, Baseball America gushed that his “ability to drive the ball to all fields is outstanding and getting better”, while also claiming that “his potential as an all-around impact player is unquestioned.”

Marte had the numbers as well. As a 19 year-old playing in the High-A Carolina League in 2003, the righty batter compiled a .285/.372/.469 line in 541 plate appearances. His K rate was somewhat high (20.1% of his PA), but not prohibitively so. Marte displayed power (.184 ISO) and patience (12.4 BB%) as a teenager in advanced A-Ball, a level where most players are closer to the legal drinking age.

The 6-1, 205 pounder followed that up with another tasty .269/.364/.525 triple-slash in 450 PA at AA Greenville in 2004. He maintained his control of the zone (12.9 BB%), while hitting for a ton of power (.256 ISO). The K rate crept up a little (23.3%), but it wasn’t as though he was the Chris Davis of the Southern League or anything.

As a 21 year-old in the AAA International League in 2005, Marte managed to post a .275/.372/.506 line in 460 PA. It was more of the same for Marte: walks (13.9 BB%) and extra-base hits (.231 ISO) by the bucketful. Even his whiff rate headed in the right direction, as Marte punched out just 18 percent of the time. His first exposure to the major leagues was certainly nothing to brag about (.140/.227/.211 with Atlanta), but 66 plate appearances of poor hitting were hardly cause for great alarm.

It was mighty difficult to punch a hole in his prospect status at this point. Andy was young relative to the levels at which he played. He showed a keen eye at the plate. He seemed to tame his contact issues. Heck, even his defense was sweet. Marte looked like yet another home-grown star for the Braves.

Then, something very peculiar happened. The Braves traded their gifted young third baseman, shipping him to Boston for Edgar Renteria in December of 2005. Young, cost-controlled players are worth their weight in gold (and top-rated position players tend to fair the best), so seeing Marte switch unis was hardly expected.

Then, we seemed to enter the Twilight Zone when the Sox then re-gifted him to the Indians in January of 2006, as part of a trade to acquire Coco Crisp. A top-rated prospect traded twice in one-offseason? Nonetheless, Baseball America remained steadfast: Marte possessed “everything teams want in a third baseman”, according to the 2006 Prospect Handbook.

Now Tribe property, Marte was sent to AAA Buffalo to begin the ‘06 season. The 22 year-old, who demolished the International League the prior year, was…just okay. In 394 PA, Marte batted a rather tame .261/.322/.451. His once-pristine control of the strike zone went a little south (8.7 BB%, 22.7 K%), but the Indians were still anxious to try out their shiny new hot corner prospect. The club called him up in late July. Marte’s first extended time in the bigs wasn’t really anything to write John Schierholtz about, though. In 178 PA, Andy hit .226/.287/.421, with a 7.3 BB% and a 23.3% whiff rate.

While Marte didn’t exactly hit the ground running in the majors, Cleveland was committed to letting him find his footing at the highest level. Or, at least it seemed that way. Marte made the team out of spring training in 2007, but then proceeded to flail to the tune of a .553 OPS in April. After just 41 PA, the Indians pulled the plug and sent him back to AAA.

Instead of re-establishing himself in the organization’s plans, Marte did a career face-plant. He batted just .267/.309/.457 in 379 PA. Shockingly, Marte’s once-pristine plate discipline went down the toilet. He walked just 5.6% of the time, while punching out 18.2 percent. Whether he was pressing to get back to the majors or not, Andy scarcely resembled the seemingly can’t-miss Braves prospect of years past. It was like he started getting batting tips from Juan Uribe.

2008 was little better. In 257 PA with the Tribe, Marte posted a paltry .221/.268/.315 line. He didn’t wildly hack at every pitch seen (Marte’s Outside-Swing% was right around the 25% MLB average), but Andy often found himself down in the count. His First-Pitch Strike% was 63.4% (58.6% MLB average). In survival mode and in the pitcher’s clutches, Marte walked just 5.6% and K’d 22.1%. His power (.094) was non-existent.

How far had Andy fallen in the eyes of talent evaluators? The Indians designated him for assignment this past winter, and no one claimed him. No other GM felt the out-of-options third baseman was worth a look.

Just when it looked like Marte would have to buy a ticket to get back into a big league stadium, he went on a tear at AAA Columbus in 2009. Andy clubbed opposing pitchers for a .327/.369/.593 line in 326 PA, with a robust .267 ISO.

What are we to make of Marte at this point? On the positive side, he’s hardly ancient at 25 years of age, was going postal on International League competition, and his 16.7 K% was rather low. On the other, he’s still not working the count all that well (6.8 BB%), and a .345 BABIP suggests that his batting average-driven line will come down some.

Prior to the 2009 season, CHONE was the most optimistic projection system regarding Marte’s future (.248/.316/.421). But that forecast does not take into consideration his resurgent hitting at AAA (per Minor League Splits, Marte’s Major League Equivalent line is .292/.326/.498).

The truth probably lies somewhere in between those two lines. While it’s not a perfect comparison, Marte calls to mind a Joe Crede-type, with good pop and a slick glove helping to compensate for an aggressive, lower-OBP approach at the plate (it’s strange to say that about a guy who used to walk in upwards of 13% of his PA, but that was a long time ago now).

From a fantasy perspective, Marte is well worth a look in AL-only and deep mixed leagues. With Ryan Garko gone, Andy should get a decent amount of playing time at first base when V-Mart is behind the dish (though it’s possible he might have to contend with Matt LaPorta at some point, if the Indians don’t like his range in the outfield corners). While he seems like a long shot to reach those prognostications of stardom, Marte is at least back on the radar screen.

Maybe I’ve been surfing the web a little too much. Maybe becoming Stewart Cink’s 559,250th follower on Twitter has addled my brain. But today I thought I would take a look at three players whose last names begin with W, and do so for the win, or not, as the case may be. Hey, at least this intro was a little better than my last one, eh?

Josh Willingham – The offense around him is not good. Eric Seidman pointed out at the beginning of June that all of his nine home runs were solo home runs – threatening the ‘record’ for solo home run percentage set by Curtis Granderson in 2007 (21 out of 23). Well, Willingham has finally hit a non-solo home run – but only one. So you probably don’t pick Willingham up for RBI, but it’s also starting to look like his mini power breakout is for real. He’s shown the on-base skills before (12.9% BB% this year, 11.2% career), and his .317 BABIP (.306 career) does not portend a quick and painful slump in the future. Could the new power be as simple as the fact that his new park is helping him out? Park factors are not always stable from year to year, so this year’s half season, in which Florida’s stadium is giving up more home runs than Washington’s, is less relevant when put against that same stadium’s consistent pitcher-friendly park factors. Take last year, for instance, and Washington’s stadium gave up 10% more home runs and doubles as Willingham’s old park. Of course, his .545 slugging percentage is over 10% better than his career slugging percentage in Florida (.432), but Willingham is 30 and could easily be peaking this year. Wonky math aside, Willingham will get his chance to prove that he is who he thinks he is – in Washington or elsewhere.

Josh Whitesell – The Diamondbacks finally got savvy to their lost season and began to look to the future at first base. With Conor Jackson still laid low by his mysterious illness, and with Tony Clark shown the door (and over to the Mets perhaps?), Whitesell gets his chance. His consistently high strikeout rates in the minors (ranging from 22% to 26% before this year) have led to inconsistent batting averages (ranging from .264 to .328). But this year he finally cut the rate down below 20% and had a good followup to last year’s career best .328/.425/.568 AAA debut. He’s only two years younger than incumbent Chad Tracy, but Tracy’s declining OPS and difficulty staying on the field are both reasons that Whitesell may have a window to take over the position if he starts out hot. His 23% strikeout rate in his 62 major-league at-bats this year bodes well, even if he hasn’t shown the power yet.

Cory Wade – Wade’s story is a sad story that we’ve all heard before: Young, promising reliever debuts on a veteran team led by Joe Torre, who goes on to ride that young arm to the postseason without a look at the usage stats and patterns or a care for the reliever’s future. Call Scott Proctor for details, but Wade is on the DL with a sore shoulder and it all sounds too familiar. With all the research about starters’ usage and their development, perhaps a little more attention could go to the blue-collar workers out in the pen. Torre is, once again, using his relievers more than any other manager in the league, and Ramon Troncoso and Ronald Belisario are the new Cory Wades. They, like Wade, are among league leaders in relief appearances. Like Wade (71.1 IP), Torre’s new toys are on pace to rack up big innings totals (Troncoso – 102 IP pace, Belisario – 86 IP pace). Like he did with Wade and Proctor before, will Torre break his newest toys?

Sometimes you just can’t find a quip at the ready. You’re watching the all-star festivities, thinking about all the wonders of baseball and perusing the newest about Pitch F/X, Hit F/X, and now even Game F/X, and you think something will come. But there you are, and all you have is….

Kendry Morales – Projection systems often have trouble with breakouts, so maybe it’s not surprising that ZiPS projects Morales to basically halve his home run production from here on out, finishing with 23 home runs instead of the 26 or 27 he might otherwise be on pace for.

One can’t really blame the system for being pessimistic, however. He had only 19 home runs in 402 at-bats in the major and minor leagues combined last year, and only nine home runs in 401 total minor league at bats the year before. Why would this player approach 30 home runs?

Perhaps the pessimism also stems from Morales’ consistently low line drive percentages. When a player seems to lack home run power, the pundits fall back on the idea that he is a ‘line drive hitter’ or can ‘drive it in the gaps.’ Instead, it seems that Morales is the type of hitter that avoids the strikeout (16.9% career) in favor of putting the ball in play, often on the ground (44.9% ground ball rate). It certainly isn’t his line drive percentage (15.3% career, 17.5% this year).

One thing should be said: with a fly-ball rate over 40%, he could up the power. Lance Berkman and Adrian Gonzalez also own similar fly ball rates and have a little power. Morales’ HR/FB rate has increased every year and he may some day hit 30 home runs if only because he’s listed at 26 years old and has more baseball to play. He has also repeated AAA three times while waiting for his chance – he probably couldn’t be better prepared for this, and his peak is probably still on the way.

The year-27 peak theory has been disproved for the most part. An oft-referenced study by Schulz et al, done in 1994 by surveying the statistics of over 388 players that were active in 1965, found that major league baseball players peak between 25 and 28 years old. The reason for the range is that their peak is usually determined by their age when they broke into the majors. It follows that you would peak later if you debuted later. But the law of the bell curve also applies, and the later you join the league, the earlier you leave the league for the most part.

If this Cuban first baseman is actually 26 years old, he’s joining the majors early enough to have better years in front of him. For those in keeper leagues, this first half at least shows that he belongs and will play long enough to probably have a better year in sometime soon in his career.

However, if he’s closer to 30 and the owner of a false birth certificate like many other Cuban players, this is most likely his peak and he probably won’t be a starter in the majors for very long. That much we do know about the bell curves of major league players as it relates to their ages and their performances.