The international free agent market opened yesterday with a number of high-profile signings of 16-year-old prospects out of Latin America. Many of the players signed on Thursday received six- to seven-figure bonuses bases on their tools and future projections. One of the most fascinating parts of scouting and development is that there are always diamonds in the rough to be found.

The New York Mets club is having a frustrating season at the Major League level, but the organization has to be pretty excited about one of its international free agent acquisitions from the 2007 signing period. Right-hander Jenrry Mejia, just 19 years old, has risen to double-A in just his first full season in North America. The best part is that the Mets organization signed Mejia for less than $20,000.

Mejia possesses a mid-90s fastball that is still adding velocity and a very good, deceptive changeup. His breaking ball - a curveball - is still developing. Mejia has shown good control for a young pitcher with limited professional pitching experience.

The Dominican hurler made his North American debut in the rookie league in 2008 after spending one season in the Dominican Summer League. Before the 2008 season was over, though, Mejia was pitching against college graduates in the short-season New York Penn League.

Despite jumping over low-A to begin 2009, Mejia had few problems in high-A ball, where he posted a 1.97 ERA and allowed just 41 hits in 50.1 innings of work. He had a walk rate of just 2.86 BB/9 and racked up a strikeout rate of 7.87. Mejia also induced ground balls at the rate of 65.4%, while allowing a line-drive rate of just 9.8%. Promoted to double-A as a teenager, he has actually had to work a little bit. In four starts, Mejia's given up 23 hits in 21.2 innings, while posting rates of 3.74 BB/9 and 9.97 K/9. His ground-ball rate has remained solid at 53.6%, while his line-drive rate is still low at 10.1%.

Mejia is an exciting prospect - and not just because he's holding his own as a teenager in double-A. He's dominating with a good repertoire that promises to get even better as he fills out his frame and gains more experience spinning his curveball. As well, he works down in the zone better than most young pitchers (thanks in part to that changeup) and he's allowed just two home runs this season in 72 innings of work combined between high-A and double-A.

If he can stay healthy, Mejia has the chance to be a No. 1 or 2 starter and his Major League career will very likely begin before his 21st birthday.

Over the last few months, the Cubs have tried a hodgepodge of options to fill third base in Aramis Ramirez's abasence - Mike Fontenot, Ryan Freel, and Bobby Scales got time there, but recently, Lou Piniella had settled on Jake Fox, star of the Free Jake Fox campaign. Fox's bat had forced him into the line-up, and he'd done enough to convince the Cubs manager that his defense wouldn't be worst-of-all-time at the hot corner.

However, with Ramirez set to return from his rehab assignment on Monday, the Cubs are going to have to figure out a new plan to get Fox's bat in the line-up. His .379 wOBA since arriving in the majors is the best on the club (besides Ramirez), and based on what he was doing at Triple-A, there's reasons to think he can keep swinging the bat this well. But, where will he play?

Derrek Lee has caught fire after a slow start, locking down first base, so Fox probably won't play much there. Ramirez is the team's best player, so as long as he stays healthy, it's hard to imagine Fox getting much playing time at third. That leaves the corner outfield spots, manned by the under-producing Milton Bradley and Alfonso Soriano. With neither of them hitting as well as expected, Fox could get some time in their place, but it's hard to imagine that he won't be a pretty big liability chasing down fly balls. At third, you could hide his lack of mobility, but if he's trying to run after balls in the gap, fans are going to see pretty quickly why he's been labeled a future DH.

So, perhaps the best option for everyone involved is a trade. The Tigers are hunting for some offensive help to offset the collapse of Magglio Ordonez, for instance. Fox is the kind of bat that could help them in their pursuit of the AL Central title, and perhaps the best way for the Cubs to use him is as a chip to acquire something that fits their needs a little bit better.

The international free agent market opened yesterday with a bang, with two 16-year old Latin Americans signing for huge bonuses. The Yankees signed catcher Gary Sanchez for a $3 million bonus, and the Cardinals, not to be outdone, spent $3.1 million on outfielder Wagner Mateo, a record amount for a Dominican position player. Signing kids to big bonus money involves a fair share of risk, as one doesn't know fully what type of player or even person a 16-year old will grow up to be. A team has to feel fairly confident about it's ability to scout and forecast a player's potential, but these players still sort of feel like expensive lottery tickets.

Wily Mo Pena signed for what was once a record $2.44 million, and he had only two seasons in which his WAR was in the positive, and neither seasons were with the team that signed him. Joel Guzman also received a huge bonuses, and he has a whopping 62 big league plate appearances to his credit. Those are a couple of the bad stories, but there is one story of a bonus baby that currently is developing into a really good one, and that is Jesus Montero's.

Signed for a $1.6 million bonus by the Yankees, scouts have raved about Montero's future power potential, some going far as to grade his power an "8" on the 2-8 scouting scale. The knock was on his body, which some said he looked like Travis Hafner. (He's currently listed at 6-4, 225). At 16-years old. I guess when you are projected to hit like vintage Travis Hafner, no one seems to mind.

Montero is just 19-years old and is currently dominating the minors. After posting a .326/.376/.491 line in Single-A ball, Montero started his season in the High-A Florida State League, a notoriously friendly league to pitching. In over a little 200 plate appearances, Montero was a man among boys, leading the league with a .444 wOBA. A promotion to Double-A has not slowed him, in 86 plate appearances Montero has a superb .325/.395/.571 line. Between Tampa and Trenton, he has just an 11.6% strikeout rate, which is outstanding for a young power hitter. His walk rate is 8%, but he should grow more patient at the plate with experience and maturity.

Montero just been playing like an absolute man child, and at this pace it's not inconceivable that he's ready for a big league job at 21-years old. But if there is hole in his game, it definitely on his defense. As a catcher, the young Venezuelan has allowed 74 stolen bases in the 43 games he's caught this season, and has thrown out just 15 would be base-stealers.

A move to 1B or even DH could be in order, but we know the Yankees are pretty historically indifferent to defense. Maybe the Yankees think he's their mini-Piazza. Hitting the way he has at a young age, maybe it's not completely preposterous to believe so.

Dave covered Joel Pineiro’s defensive dependent tendencies earlier this season. Part of Pineiro’s success can be traced to an increased groundball rate. Pineiro’s stuff is generating over 60% groundballs after producing a little less than 50% last year. Keith Law submitted a post idea involving other large jumps and whether those pitchers were able to sustain the batted ball trait in the following season.

Using our groundball data (dating back to 2002) I looked at every starting pitcher with at least 100 innings during that season and compared their rates to the preceding and following seasons. I found eight cases where a pitcher increased 10% from one year to the next. Those cases include Cliff Lee, Josh Beckett, Ryan Drese, Jon Garland, Johan Santana, CC Sabathia, Kris Benson, and John Thomson. Below you’ll see the data table. The first column is self explanatory. Year N dictates the season in which the large jump occurred. Delta is the difference between Year N and Year N-1. N+1 is the year after Year N, shown to represent whether the jump sustained or regressed in the following season.



None of the pitchers suffered a 50% or higher loss in the next season. Only Jon Garland lost 5% or more, and only two pitchers gained more than 1%. All of which is to say that if the pitcher can show such improvement in causing groundballs, then the improvement is most likely legitimate rather than a sample size fluke. So what’s the improved part of Pineiro’s game? His fastballs.

For one, Gameday is now classifying a large chunk of Pineiro’s fastballs as two-seamers, which seems accurate. Pineiro’s four-seam fastballs are also breaking in to righties more and ‘up’ less. Whatever the pitch is, Pineiro is giving batters of both hands absolute fits this season. Righties have a .702 OPS against despite an inflated BABIP and lefties have a .661 OPS against, albeit with a deflated BABIP. This isn’t the Pineiro we or the batters are used to, but I guess we’re stuck with this version for at least another year.
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For more reference on groundball rate spikes, check out Eric’s piece from earlier in the season.

The Houston Astros wisely designated Brandon Backe for assignment last week, eventually ending his tenure with the club. Nobody claimed Backe when he was placed on waivers, meaning that Backe could either opt to be released or accept a demotion to the minors. He declined the latter and was given his outright release, making him available to the 29 other teams in the league.

This isn't going to be a lengthy post because it doesn't need to be, but I am strongly advocating that teams avoid Backe. With injuries and ineffectiveness, he hasn't been a viable major league starter since the 2005 season, and at 31 years old, there really isn't much upside here.

If he is willing to accept a minor league deal and prove himself then the story might go a little differently, but a pitcher with a sub-2.0 K/BB ratio, thereby exhibiting poor command usually needs to have some potential to improve to sustain a job or some sort of blistering fastball. Backe has neither, and at this point would not upgrade the rotation of any contender or serve as a potential chip for any of the non-contenders.

Backe has a career 5.23 ERA and 5.33 FIP, an 88-89 mph fastball with average or below movement, and has never ventured above the 0.9 WAR mark. Full disclosure, that 0.9 win season wasn't very good, but involved about 150 innings being logged. Simply put, Backe is a replacement level pitcher, the kind of guy a team should call up from Triple A when someone gets hurt.

Sure, he will be cheap, but teams would be better suited to try their young guys than dish out starts to a subpar pitcher. Replacement level with potential for upside always beats plain old replacement level.

Relief pitchers throw hard. This isn't news. Jonathan Broxton, Brian Wilson, Matt Lindstrom, and Mark Lowe all average 96 MPH+ with their fastballs. Angel Guzman throws a 90 MPH slider. These guys are big, power arms who come in and light up radar guns. And compared to Joel Zumaya, they throw like nine year olds.

See, Zumaya's average fastball this year is 99.4 MPH according to BIS, 99.1 MPH according to Pitch F/x. In fact, I'm going to just stop writing and show you a picture.



That's Zumaya's velocity chart over the last three years on a game by game basis. Look at the recent averages, then notice that they're above the blue line that marks 100 MPH. Of late, Zumaya's average fastball has been faster than 100 MPH. His average fastball.

This is just nutty. In his last appearance against the A's, his fastballs went like this.

102
102.6
102.7
101.9
99.7 (I guess he took a little off)
99.9
99.2
100
100.4
101
101.3

12 fastballs, with an average velocity of 100.9 MPH. And he didn't strike anybody out. In fact, he didn't strike anyone out in the appearance before that, either, when he threw 25 fastballs that averaged 100.6 MPH. Despite throwing as hard as anyone ever has, it isn't helping him much. Here's Zumaya's line for June, when he just started hitting triple digits on nearly every pitch.

10 1/3 IP, 12 H, 2 HR, 14 BB, 10 K, 8.43 FIP

As his fastball has edged up in velocity, his command has gone away entirely, and he's been a Triple-A level reliever. Compare that with his 12 appearances in April/May, when he threw 16 innings, allowed 15 hits, walked 2, and struck out 15 for a 3.33 FIP. In his best outing of the year (May 19th vs Texas), he threw 10 fastballs and cracked 100 just once. He recorded three outs on 11 pitches, eight of which were strikes.

For Zumaya, there appear to be diminishing returns associated with his velocity. 99 with location is an awful lot better than 101 with no idea where it's going. For his sake, and really for baseball's sake, let's hope the Tigers can help him ease back off the fastball a little bit. The game could really use a fun to watch relief ace who can hit 100 whenever he wants come October. It is less enjoyable to see him walk the world throwing 102.

Ryan Howard's HR/FB rate, at 23.5%, is lower than his HR/FB rate in any of his full years of play, in which it was always above 30%. He has replaced some of those HRs with doubles and 23.5% is still a very good rate, but the drop in HRs is interesting and even more interesting is where those HRs have gone.



Ryan Howard has been the epitome of power to all fields. Jeremy Greenhouse previously noted he hits historically high numbers of HRs to the opposite field, and, it seems, prior to this year he hits HRs almost uniformly to all parts of the field (most power hitters hit the majority of their HRs to the pull field). This year, though, almost all of his HRs have been to dead center with very few in the pull field and only one opposite shot. Dead center is not the best place to try to hit HRs as it is the largest part of a ball park.

Next I wanted to see if Howard has seen a drop in his fly ball distances. Again these distances are using the GameDay data which records were the ball was fielded or landed for a HR. Consider two hits, one to center and one pulled, both travel the same distance in the air but then roll to the wall where they are fielded. Since the wall is farther away in center it will be recorded as a longer hit. Thus this method will overestimate the distance of fly balls to center field.



Here you can see Howard's power to all fields. The average lefty has power to the pull field and drops off to opposite field. Howard's power peaks at dead center, but is present to all fields. This year he has even more power to center and less power to the pull and opposite fields. This is why his HRs have mostly been to center, he is missing them to the pull and opposite fields and his overall HR numbers are down.

Finally let's look at the location of the pitches he hits for HRs.



Before this year he hit pitches all over the plate for HRs. This year he has hit fewer inside and outside pitches for HRs, which is probalby why he is missing all those opposite and pull field HRs.

So we know why Howard is hitting fewer HRs, a drop in power to the pull and opposite fields, but it is too early to tell if these differences are small sample size realated or a real shift in true talent.

Heading up to the draft, one of the main topics of conversation was how much Stephen Strasburg was worth, and how much he'd eventually sign for. Rumors of a $50 million bonus demand were floated, while the consensus seemed to be that he'll sign for $15 to $20 million, because he lacks the leverage to negotiate with teams besides the Washington Nationals. The big "what if" question was how much a prospect like Strasburg would get if he was a free agent.

We might find out sooner than later, because Aroldis Chapman has reportedly defected from Cuba. R.J. wrote about his WBC start here, where Chapman showed off a legitimate power fastball from the left side. In their scouting report of the top 10 WBC prospects, Baseball America got the following quote from a scout:

"If you are looking for more than that in a pitcher, you'll be searching your whole life," an AL scout said. "He was so much fun to watch. If he's 21 like he's listed, the sky's the limit. You've got honestly just one or two tweaks that could be made but he could go straight to the top of a big league rotation."

Unlike with Strasburg, or even Japanese sensation Yu Darvish, Chapman has to be evaluated on his physical tools rather than his performance, but those tools are plenty exciting. It isn't every day that a 21-year-old LHP with a mid-90s fastball becomes available for all 30 teams to bid on.

Let's just hope, for the good of baseball, that he doesn't end up with the Red Sox or Yankees.

Andy Marte completed a backslide of epic proportions earlier in the year when he was designated for assignment to clear a roster spot for a Juan Salas, a relief pitcher who the Tribe claimed off of waivers from the Rays. No team claimed Marte, and Salas was later dumped on May 6th in favor of Matt Herges.

From being a top prospect to major downer, it seems like Andy Marte has been around forever. Dave Cameron already took us through Marte's fall from grace back in February, but I'll recap it quickly: Marte first hit the prospect scene after posting a .211 ISO in the Sally League in 2002 as an 18-year old. He showed impressive patience and pop in a tough hitter's environment in the Carolina League (12% walk rate, .184 ISO) the following year. Marte continued to mash in the higher levels of the minors hit, with a nifty .269/.364/.525 "slash" line as a 20-year old in Double-A, and .275/.372/.506 as a 21-year old in Triple-A.

Going into 2006, by all appearances, Marte was ready for a big league job. Baseball America rated him the number one prospect in the Braves' system and the 14th best overall, but with Chipper Jones receiving a three-year extension, Marte was traded to Boston for Edgar Renteria. Boston then flipped Marte along with Guillermo Mota, Kelly Shoppach to Cleveland Indians for Josh Bard, Coco Crisp, David Riske and Randy Newsom. To prospect geeks like me, it seemed a little strange to see a supposed future star get traded twice in one winter, and especially for solid-but-unspectacular players like Crisp and Renteria (who was coming off the worst season of his life).

You know the rest of the story. After being traded twice, Marte was terrible for Cleveland and middling in Triple-A, up until now. Last night for AAA Columbus, Marte went 4-for-4 with two doubles and a homer. In his last ten games, he's hit .459/.512/.892. His overall line is now up to .319/.351/.527 for the season. It would be tempting to write that sort of performance off considering how this is his 8th season in the minors, but Marte is 25 years old, not young, yet hardly Quad-A age.

After being traded to Cleveland, Marte has gone from being posting decent walk rates to being downright hacky, walking in just around 5% of his plate appearances. His BABIP (.335) is a tad high, but doesn't really show anything super-fluky. Marte is making solid contact, striking out in 16.7% of his plate appearances. His minor league equivalent is .287/.313/.458, definitely not the superstar level, but the Indians will take it, especially taking into account that Marte is regarded as being one of the better defenders in the minors, so much so, he was voted by minor league managers and coaches as the International League's best defensive third baseman three years in a row ('05-'07). His Total Zone numbers match the scouting reports; in those 301 games, Marte has been worth +31 runs.

Marte still could and should be a productive major league player, even if merely productive is a fraction of what is upside once was perceived as. Since Mark DeRosa has been traded to St. Louis, Jhonny Peralta and his disappearing power act has taken up residency at third base for Cleveland. So once again, Marte has opportunity. Hopefully he can make the most of his next chance, because it should be coming soon.

Name the pitchers:
Pitcher A: 172.2 IP, 17.31% K, 5.85 BB%, 10.1% HR/FB, 67.7% LOB, 5.16 ERA, 4.55 FIP
Player B: 112.2 IP, 14.64% K, 7.88 BB%, 10.8% HR/FB, 85.9% LOB, 2.64 ERA, 4.53 FIP

Pitcher B is Kevin Millwood, benefactor of an unsustainable amount of stranded runners, thus keeping his ERA at a comfortable, and easily overrated, 2.64. Pitcher A is also Kevin Millwood, two seasons ago. The differences between the two seasons are minimal. This Millwood walks a few more, strikes out a few less, and has a vastly superior defense behind him, otherwise, they’re the same pitcher – literally and figuratively.

Millwood’s spiffy ERA has some placing him on their All-Star ballots, which is fair, as long as shortstop Elvis Andrus, right fielder Nelson Cruz, and the rest of the Rangers defense gets to play tag along to St. Louis. Don’t be surprised to see Millwood sneak onto some Cy Young ballots either, even if he cannot avoid the regression but as the season progresses. What would regression hold for the Texas righty?
Millwood’s strikeout and walk ratios share company with Jeremy Guthrie, Brian Bannister, Paul Maholm, and Dallas Braden. Guthrie’s homerun rate is too high, while Bannister’s, Maholm, and Braden’s are too low to be perfect matches with Millwood, but check out their ERA:

Guthrie 5.11
Bannister 3.93
Maholm 4.35
Braden 3.26

The closest, Braden, has a lofty 75% strand rate of his own and his ERA is still about a half run higher than Millwood. Even if you discount the high/low totals, you see Millwood’s company has an ERA in the 4-4.5 spread, about equal to his FIP. If you have Millwood on your fantasy team, sell him now. There are some examples of seasons like this actually lasting through October, but don’t bet on another Steve Trachsel 1996, just pull the trigger before it’s too late.

With June over, I was taking a look back at the month for various teams and Philadelphia really stood out to me because of four players and the team overall. In June, the Phillies went just 11-15 and yet they expanded their lead by a game. As a team, they hit just .249/.320/.423 leading to a below average .326 wOBA.

The starting pitchers compiled a very solid 2.4 strikeouts per walk ratio, but a below average ground ball rate and a slightly elevated home run figure kept them right around average overall. Meanwhile, the bullpen was almost the opposite with a mediocre 1.34 strikeouts per walk, but a fabulous 46% ground ball rate kept the home runs at bay.

Moving on to the players themselves, here are some of the more interesting lines. First, a pair of mashers.

Jayson Werth heated up big time in June, which was an accomplishment given his .379 wOBA through May. 18 walks to just 20 strikeouts was an improvement and his ten extra base hits included seven of the long ball variety. Overall, it was a .930 OPS and a .406 wOBA, good for about eight runs over average. Exceeding that was Chase Utley. Utley came into June with a .436 wOBA, and he bettered that with a .440 wOBA in June. That included a matched 21 strikeouts and walks and fifteen extra base hits with a triple and six home runs.

On the other end of the spectrum was Jimmy Rollins. Rollins has had one of the most baffling seasons of late. Coming off five straight seasons of at least four wins, Rollins has been worth -0.6 wins to date. It was a horrible first two months and June was even worse. Rollins' line ended at .167/.206/.292, bad for a .227 wOBA.

On the pitching side, Cole Hamels entered June with just so-so numbers so far. He had a good 76:16 strikeout to walk rate, but 11 home runs in just 81 innings. Here is what a dominant month looks like. 45% ground balls, one home run allowed in 76.2 innings, 26 strikeouts, just six walks.