It’s no secret that offense in baseball is down …

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This is not how the season was supposed to begin f…

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Despite being two games under .500 through the fir…

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When Ryan Zimmerman went on the disabled list last…

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As we head into the final days of April, there is …

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Derek Jeter is off to a scorching start this seaso…

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Over the last five years, one trend has taken the …

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In almost every circumstance, April performance me…

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Every April, a few players get off to a bad star…

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On today’s list of the #26-#50 players in baseball according to the ESPN 500, Marlins ace Josh Johnson came in at #30, one spot behind fellow sometimes-injured starter Chris Carpenter. It’s easy to see why Johnson (and Carpenter, for that matter) ranked so highly, as they are dominating starters when they take the mound. Johnson’s career ERA- is 70, meaning that he’s prevented runs at a rate 30 percent better than an average pitcher over that time. To put that in perspective, Roy Halladay‘s career ERA- is 71. On a per-inning basis, Johnson stacks up favorably against any pitcher in the game.

However, while Johnson’s quality level is extremely high, his quantity of innings pitched is relatively low. He’s managed just 725 innings across parts of seven seasons, and has managed to make more than 14 starts in a season just three times in his career. Persistent health problems have been an issue that Johnson just hasn’t been able to shake, and given his lingering shoulder problems that limited him to just 60 innings pitched last year, the Marlins need to have muted expectations for how often he’ll be able to take the hill in 2012.

That realization is a large part of the reason that the team aggressively pursued Mark Buehrle as a free agent. Buehrle might be the furthest thing from Johnson currently pitching in the game today – a soft-tossing left-hander who rarely gets a strikeout but who is a mortal lock to take the hill every fifth day, and pitch deep into the ballgame at that. Buehrle has reached the 200 inning mark in an astounding 11 consecutive seasons, and has never once been on the disabled list. In fact, he’s never missed a start for any reason since being called up to the big leagues in 2000. And yet, the ironman among current starting pitchers was rated only 134th by the voters in the ESPN 500, sliding in between Aramis Ramirez and John Danks.

So, we know that the voters prefer quality over quantity in their starting pitchers, but now that the Marlins have both, which one is likely to provide more value for Miami in 2012?

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As we begin to climb higher on the ladder of our rankings of the top 500 players in baseball, we’ve seen similarities between groups begin to emerge. The 401-500 section contained a lot of middle relievers, #5 starters, and utility infielders. In the 301-400 section, we found a lot of aging former stars hanging on as role players and trying to squeeze a bit more life out of the end of their careers. And now, today, in looking at the group from 201-250, one common theme stands out among the many names on the list – underachievers.

This list is full of guys who have, at some point in their careers, flashed the potential to be stars. Many of these players are former top prospects, and some even have had success in the big leagues, but they’ve never become what they were supposed to be. For players like Delmon Young, the clock is now working against them, and we have to assume that they’ll never live up to the expectations that they generated early in their careers. For four others on this list, however, 2012 is their make or break year – they’ll either become what they were supposed to be or enter camp next year fighting for a spot on a big league roster.

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Before suffering a torn ulnar collateral ligament that required Tommy John Surgery, Stephen Strasburg was pitching at a level that few men have been able to match. Now nearly 19 months removed from surgery, the Nationals are hopeful that their ace will be able to match his previous dominance and establish himself as one of the National League’s best starting pitchers.

Is that a realistic goal for a pitcher in his first season after returning from elbow surgery? To examine that question, we will look at six other starting pitchers who are Tommy John survivors, and we will measure their performance in year one after surgery against their performances in the season preceding the year in which they went on the DL and their second year after coming back from injury.

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The Washington Nationals have already decided that…

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Last year, the Cleveland Indians starting pitchers…

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Stephen Drew is not the Diamondbacks best player -…

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The Royals have an awful lot of young talent. Even after graduating top prospects Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, and Danny Duffy to the Majors last year, they still placed five players on Keith Law’s list of the 100 best prospects in baseball, and he rated their farm system as the fifth best in the game right now. Their oldest projected position player is Alex Gordon, who just turned 28-years-old on February 10th, and besides Bruce Chen, their entire pitching staff is a bunch of 20-somethings.

The Royals will almost certainly be one of the youngest teams in Major League Baseball this year, and with all the highly touted young talent they’ve developed internally over the last few seasons, comparisons to the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays are inevitable. However, a closer inspection of what we should actually expect from the Royals young talents this year suggests that this team just isn’t ready to win yet.

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Despite spring proclamations of hope and what could be possible, not every team has a serious chance of capturing the World Series title this year. For some clubs, the lack of talent on the field makes that an unrealistic goal for 2012. However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t have a successful season, especially if they set their sights on things that they can accomplish this year. So, let’s take a look at outcomes for nine expected non-contenders that would make 2012 a worthwhile campaign, even if it doesn’t end with a run at the playoffs.

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When it comes to spring training statistics, the…

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What with the terribly conspicuous signings of Alb…

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The Washington Nationals, despite being linked in the media to almost every high-dollar free agent, have had a somewhat quiet winter. As such, it’s tempting to dismiss them. After all, an 80-win team whose primary offseason addition is a Type-B free agent (Edwin Jackson) isn’t redolent of “contender.” In the Nats’ case, however, that’s precisely what they are: a contender.

To be sure, the Nats can’t be considered the favorites for a playoff berth, in part because they have the misfortune of playing in a division in which only one team — the Mets — can be brushed aside as a non-factor. But they’re in the fray, which is more than can be said for the remainder of recent franchise history.

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