The Hardball Times -- David Wade

Hawk Harrelson’s pearls of wisdom

David Wade — 2013-04-11T06:11:15+00:00

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Five questions: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

David Wade — 2013-03-06T07:10:15+00:00

A year ago, the Angels were going into the 2012 offseason with a solid pitching staff and a powerful but inconsistent lineup. They further strengthened their starting rotation and along the way levied a blow against a division rival by signing a good pitcher away from Texas. To augment the lineup, they signed, via free agency, the man who may be the greatest hitter of our generation. Then, about three weeks after the season started, they called up baseball's best prospect and he went on to have one of the best seasons in the history of the game. Toward the end of July, they traded for a terrific starting pitcher and had what looked at the time to be about as good a postseason rotation as you could ask for.

They did all that so they could contend with the Texas Rangers, a team that has dominated the division the past few years, and make it to the postseason. However, all the money, signings, and trades still left them trailing Texas and Oakland at the end of 2012. They missed the playoffs even though they won 89 games.

So here we are, heading into 2013, and the Angels again spent big on offense in the offseason. Once again they struck a blow against the rival Rangers, this time by signing another of their free agents, the mercurial outfielder/power hitter Josh Hamilton. He is a game-changing slugger, but one whose staggering talent comes at the price of inconsistency on—and sometimes off—the field. They also made moves in the starting rotation again, with a little attrition thrown in this time.

Will these changes right the wrongs of 2012 and help the Angels make the playoffs? That may depend, at least a little bit, on the answers to these five questions.

How big a difference will Hamilton make, really?

While Hamilton, like the majority of baseball players, is not on the level of Albert Pujols, this still marks the second offseason in a row that the Angels signed the best available slugger on the free agent market. Hamilton will join Pujols and Mike Trout to form a fearsome threesome in the batting order.

Hamilton replaces Torii Hunter, the former Angels outfielder who is now with Detroit. Most people will expect Hamilton to put up better numbers than Hunter. But, last season, Hunter hit .313/.365/.451. That translated to a 132 OPS+ in what ESPN rated as the fourth toughest park to hit and score runs in. Meanwhile, Hamilton hit .285/.354/.577, a line that shows that he reached base almost as well as Hunter, but hit for quite a bit more power. Despite the superior slugging percentage, that gave Hamilton a OPS+ of 139, partly because he played half his games in what ESPN rated as the fourth best park to hit in.

For his career at Ranger Ballpark, Hamilton has put up a .315/.373/.592 slash line. For every other park, he has hit .292/.354/.504. His numbers so far in games he has played in Anaheim don't really mean much since it's a small sample size in relation to every game he has ever played elsewhere. And they especially don't mean much since those numbers were against some guys who he'll actually be playing alongside now. But overall, he seems to be like a lot of players in that he hits better in his home games than he does on the road.

The question will be how much better he can hit at home now that his home is in a bigger ballpark that has a history of suppressing run-scoring. We can't guarantee the answer, but there's actually a pretty good chance that Hamilton's 2013 may not end up being much of an improvement for the Angels over the line Hunter posted in 2012.

How will Mike Trout follow up his historic 2012 season?

Since you come to The Hardball Times to find out stuff like this, we should let you know that this newcomer, Mike Trout, had a pretty good year last year and may be one of the better young players in the game. He hit .326/.399/.564 in his first extended look at major league pitching and played some spectacular defense.

Okay, it turns out he was the best all-around player in the game and you probably already know that.

You also probably know that he was only 20 years old in 2012. And most of you probably know that players tend to get better year by year as they reach their mid-20s, and by and large most peak sometime before they are 30. So, if Trout is like most players, he'll get better over the course of the next decade and his best years are ahead of him.

But, he already showed last year that he is not like most players. He's not even close to most players. Most players don't hit as well as Trout did when they are 20 or 21. In fact, most players don't ever hit as well as Trout did, no matter their age. We have to look at some of the best hitters ever, guys like Alex Rodriguez, Mickey Mantle and Albert Pujols- to find players who also had seasons as spectacular as Trout's when they were 20, going on 21.

For example, when Rodriguez was 20, turning 21, he hit .358/.414/.631. It was unbelievable. It was the best season ever by a shortstop, and as Tom Verducci noted in Sports Illustrated the next spring, Rodriguez had done it despite playing most of the year with a bad hamstring. He looked like a player who could hit .400 with 30 home runs and 30 steals his next season. We know some things about A-Rod now, things that have taken our focus off of how incredible he was when he started out. But that doesn't change the fact that he was a phenom in his first full season.

He followed his historic first full season by hitting .300/.350/.496. That's not too bad, but it was a regression nonetheless. It was spurred in some part by a 50 point drop in BABIP from his first full season to his second. Maybe that could mean something since Mike Trout's BABIP in 2012 was .383, and although his minor league averages were also high, that rate may be hard to maintain and he may also see a drop in his second year.

But, when Mickey Mantle was 20, turning 21, he hit .311/.394/.530 and his BABIP the next season dropped only about 25 points, and he was still able to come pretty close to repeating his earlier numbers by putting up a .295/.398/.497 line.

And when Trout's teammate, Albert Pujols was 21 and in his first season, he hit .329/.403/.610. The next year he kept being awesome, and hit .314/.394/.561, which is probably only about the difference of a homer here, and a few doubles there.

This small sample of players who hit as well as Trout when they were 20 were able to follow up their remarkable first full seasons with some pretty nice numbers the very next year. None of them exceeded their first seasons' numbers, even though they should have been developing more as players.

And all this is trying to show (and probably showing it poorly) is that it is extremely difficult to have the kind of year Trout had last year- even for the greatest players in the game. Even if you're the same player from one year to the next and because of your age you should still be improving, that improvement may not be linear.

A lot of baseball guys are trying to guess what Trout can provide in 2013. Dave Schoenfield of ESPN thinks the kid could do just as well, while Shane Tourtellotte shows that Trout will be defying history if he matches his 2012 totals.

No one knows for sure what Trout will hit in 2013, but losing some points off of his BABIP and regressing to a line of about .290/.370/.490 with 20 home runs in 2013 would still be a great year. But as great as those numbers would be, it wouldn't be as great as last year. For the Angels, it might be unrealistic to expect better production in 2013 than what they had in 2012 out of their center fielder, even if he continues to be one of the best players in the game.

What's become of the pitching staff?

Back in December, the Angels traded the redundant Kendrys Morales to the Seattle Mariners for starting pitcher Jason Vargas. Vargas had a 3.85 ERA last season for the Mariners, to go along with a 1.18 WHIP. Both those numbers were better than what he'd shown previously in his career, but management has to hope that going from one pitcher-friendly park to another will mean he has at least a good chance to duplicate his 2012 performance.

They also traded Jordan Walden to Atlanta for Tommy Hanson. Unlike Vargas, Hanson is coming off of a down season compared to what he's been able to do in the past and has dealt with injuries lately. His new team will hope he can return to the form he showed from 2009-2011 when he was solid despite pitching in a park that's better suited for hitters than what he'll find in his new home. Joe Blanton is a free-agent addition who will likely be the Angels' fifth starter and has been a serviceable, if unspectacular pitcher, during his career.

Those three replace Zack Greinke, Dan Haren and Ervin Santana. Greinke, Haren and Santana combined with C.J. Wilson and Jered Weaver last year to form what looked like one of the best rotations in baseball. But Haren was out of form and battled some injuries throughout the year. Santana allowed a gazillion home runs and posted a 5.17 ERA. And then Greinke, though he pitched well, turned out to be a half-season rental who is now playing for the Dodgers.

The names are not nearly as sexy in the Angels rotation going into this season as they were last August. And what's worse, the new additions are not locks to pitch a combined 600 innings. That means Jerome Williams' large figure looms as a potential spot starter who could again fall into a role in which he ends up pitching nearly 150 innings, just like he did last year on a big-name staff.

Big names don't always guarantee success, as last year is proof. But as noted, Vargas is coming off a career year and Hanson is an injury risk. There's about the same chance, maybe even better, that Haren and Greinke put up better numbers for their new teams than do Vargas and Hanson do for the Angels. If that happens, then the Angels' years of relying on the strength of their rotation are ending.

These are the ERA numbers of the old guard on the left, compared to the new pitchers, listed on the right. Oliver projections are for 2013.*

Pitcher	        2012	Career 	Oliver		        2012	Career	Oliver
Ervin Santana	5.16	4.33	3.89	Joe Blanton	4.71	4.37	3.71
Zack Greinke	3.48	3.77	3.03	Jason Vargas	3.85	4.35	3.49
Dan Haren	4.33	3.66	3.44	Tommy Hanson	4.48	3.61	3.57

Even with rather optimistic projections for Blanton and Vargas, it looks like this may be another area where the Angels would be foolish to expect a dramatic increase in production over what they had last year.

Will Albert Pujols continue his decline?

Pujols had a season last year that would have been great for almost anyone. Unfortunately, the standard he has set for himself is just too high.

He hit .285/.343/.516 in 2012, with 30 home runs. That's pretty good. The problem is, we are only used to astounding, amazing, and historic when it comes to the numbers Pujols has posted. Pretty good is for mortals. So, do we have to lower the bar, or should we be expecting a bounce-back? There's little doubt he could have big years left in his career. But, there's also a good chance that we are seeing him decline, and that his decline will continue with occasional periods of his greatness thrown in.

To stave off a further reduction in production, perhaps Pujols could find a way to return to the selectivity at the plate that he has demonstrated in the past. According to Fangraphs, Pujols, during his plate appearances in 2012, swung at 36.4 percent of pitches that were outside the strike zone. For his career, that percentage is 22.9.

Even though he was chasing way more pitches than he used to, his overall contact percentage was about the same as it has always been. He was able to do that because his contact rate on those pitches outside the zone has grown in the past three years to last year's peak of 77 percent. Meanwhile, his swing rate at pitches inside the zone was pretty much in line with what he's done in the past. Due at least in part to that more aggressive approach last year, Pujols also took fewer walks. His base on balls percentage was only 7.8 in 2012, compared to a 12.7 rate for his career.

So again, it appears that Pujols has become more aggressive at the plate in the past year or two. Nevertheless, due to his incredible skill with a baseball bat, he still makes a lot of contact. But, the tradeoff looks like it could be a decline in power, especially if he can't hit those borderline pitches that he's swinging at with increasing regularity as hard as he hits pitches in the strike zone.

Another thing that may keep him from posting the type of power numbers he has in the past is his home park. Note his percentages on fly balls, ground balls, line drives, infield flies and home runs per fly ball in the table below for 2012 versus those percentages for his career (all numbers from Fangraphs)-

Pujols	2012	Career

FB%	39.9	40
GB%	41.3	41
LD%	18.8	19
IFFB%	12.1	12.9
HR/FB%	14	19.2

Only one of those things is not like the others, and that's the 5 percentage point decrease in fly balls leaving the ballpark. He now plays half of his games in a park that (you may notice this recurring theme) ESPN rates as one of the toughest for hitting homers.

If Pujols is trending toward a more aggressive approach at the plate, and if it's a conscious decision, perhaps he can try and rein it in a little and, combined with maybe just a little more luck on a few fly balls, he can have a few more ball leave the yard in 2013. However, if he continues to chase, and continues to trade walks for putting more balls in play, his new home ballpark may play a role in suppressing his power numbers, at least from the levels we are accustomed to.

It would probably be the better bet to guess that Pujols can do better this year than he did last year, but it's also probably not as safe a wager as it would have been in the past.

How could Paramount Pictures go with Tom Cruise over Mark Trumbo?

Mark Trumbo had a cup of coffee with the Angels in 2010, when he appeared in eight games. Jack Reacher loves coffee, has it every chance he gets, and has appeared in 17 of Lee Child's novels. Trumbo goes to the plate looking to do one thing—punish a baseball. His aggressiveness means he will miss out on some walks, but his goal in each at-bat is to "go up there and hit the ball hard." Reacher doesn't quite know how to walk away from trouble. In any potential conflict, his natural instinct is to hit first and hit hard. Trumbo has played all over the diamond while Reacher has wandered all over the country. Trumbo is 6-foot-4 and about 230 pounds of pure beast. Reacher is about an inch taller, sometimes a little heavier, and almost as beastly. Reacher is also a baseball fan, but he prefers the Yankees over the Angels.

After a strong start in regard to box office numbers, Paramount's film Jack Reacher faded after a few weeks and will probably be considered a disappointment since it doesn't look like a viable franchise that could churn out multiple sequels.

Trumbo had a strong first half last season, pulverizing the ball for a .306/.358/.608 line heading into the All-Star break. He appeared in the home run derby and hit some of the most impressive drives of the competition while using a compact swing combined with his brute strength. However, he faded hard after the break and hit only .227/.271/.359, leaving many to wonder if he can be a viable long-term fixture in the middle of the Angels' lineup. Trumbo prefers to hit his way on base, and struck out 153 times last year, while he drew only 36 walks. He will have to find ways of fighting through tough stretches of poor at-bats so he can put together a more consistent season in 2013.

The Angels can expect at least 30 homers from Trumbo, but how the other stats shake out may be a lot more iffy. It's safe to assume that he can end up with about the same contribution he had last year, and that is a recurring theme with the answers to these five questions. There is no doubt the Angels have some great players, but imagining them to win many more than 89 games this year would be optimistic.

In fact, Baseball Prospectus' Pecota system predicts that the Angels will win 90. That could be enough to win the division and right the wrongs of last year.

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AL West: a wild, wild finish?

David Wade — 2012-09-24T09:05:15+00:00

Through 150 games, a span including slow starts, late-inning wins, historic individual performances, and surprising seasons, we already know how these teams have gotten to this point. Texas and Seattle have followed the script, sitting in first and last, respectively.

Anaheim*, despite the addition of C.J. Wilson and Albert Pujols from the free agent market and the call-up of Mike Trout—their sensational top prospect heading into the year—has failed to make a run at Texas for the division title.

On the other hand, Oakland, despite trading away three of their best players from last season, and despite losing valuable pieces to injury or suspension this season, has surprised us all by challenging Texas for the division lead.

So now we head into the last week-and-a-half of the 2012 season prepared for a thrilling finish that could rival last year's unbelievable final days.

With seven games remaining against division-leading Texas, Oakland could pull off a feat many thought impossible a few months ago. Trailing by four games, the odds still remain heavily against them actually winning the division. On the bright side, their lead in the Wild Card is 2.5 games over the Angels, 3.5 games over the Rays, and 5.5 games over Detroit going into the Tigers' Sunday night game with the Twins. If Oakland can hang onto that lead, it can secure the newest playoff spot in baseball.

Unfortunately for Oakland, those leads would have been greater were it not for a recent rough stretch that included two soul-crushing losses to New York in extra innings this past weekend. The loss on Saturday was particularly difficult, as Oakland held a four-run lead in the 14th inning but couldn't close out the Yankees. While we will see how the Wild Card is Oakland's most likely way into the playoffs, two remaining series with Texas means the A's do still have a chance to win the West.

Oakland will face Derek Holland Monday, then Yu Darvish on Tuesday. Martin Perez, new to the starting rotation, is due to start Wednesday.

The Texas pitcher that may present the toughest challenge to Oakland is Darvish. In his last three starts, spanning 23 innings, Darvish is 2-0 with 26 strikeouts and a 1.17 ERA. He is starting to look a lot like the dominant pitcher he was in Japan before Texas signed him this past offseason. While he still features up to seven different pitches, he seems to be trimming the number he relies on down of late.

Whether it's a product of focusing more on certain pitches over others, or just his reaching a comfort level in the major leagues, he is not walking as many batters as he did earlier in the year. Oakland hitters are prone to the strikeout, and Darvish already has 22 punchouts in 20 innings against them this year. A ray of hope: he has walked 11 A's batters in that time, as well.

As for Oakland's pitchers, they continue to deal with injuries to the starting rotation. Brandon McCarthy is out after taking a line drive off his head (and thankfully recovering from a very scary injury), and the team just lost Brett Anderson due to an oblique injury. With Bartolo Colon out for a drug suspension, Oakland has been forced to shuffle in starters since the All-Star break, a time period in which, despite their troubles, they have played very well.

Travis Blackley will return to the starting role where he has had some success this year. Blackley and their other young starters will be instrumental if Oakland is able to extend its season.

While it's possible to catch the team you're trailing by four games with seven more meetings to go, Oakland's best bet to make the playoffs is found in the new Wild Card format. Unfortunately for the A's, the teams behind them in the Wild Card race have easier paths to the finish line, mostly because they don't have to face Texas seven times.

Detroit plays Kansas City and Minnesota the rest of the way but is far enough behind Oakland and Baltimore that the Tigers are a much bigger threat to Chicago for the Central division crown than to the A's for the Wild Card. Tampa Bay, hoping for a repeat of last year's late-season heroics, goes on the road to face Boston and Chicago before finishing at home against Baltimore in what the Rays hope would be three very meaningful games.

One of the biggest threats to the Athletics for the Wild Card is their division mate, the Angels. The Angels have three games of their own against Texas but also get to face the last-place Mariners for six. Anaheim is hoping to salvage a season that held a ton of promise at the beginning of the year. Pujols and Trout, as expected, have made the offense better. But it's the pitching, something that figured to be a strength, that's been mediocre.

Jered Weaver has delivered, but the rest of the All-Star rotation has not pitched as well as they are accustomed to. Dan Haren, in particular, has been injured and inconsistent on his way to an ERA that's over a run higher than his mark last season. While we never really put Ervin Santana on Weaver or Haren's level, he has been good in the past, but his ERA has nearly hit 5.00 in 2012 and is part of the reason the staff as a whole is in the middle of the pack in the American League instead of near the top. The addition of Zack Greinke has helped, but they've only had him for about 80 innings.

Obviously, if the Yankees and/or the White Sox fall out of the lead in their respective divisions, they would replace either Baltimore or Detroit as threats to Oakland and Anaheim for the two Wild Card spots.

A couple of weeks ago, Jayson Stark covered something else that will make this last week and a half interesting: the looming disaster of scheduling tie-breaker games prior to the playoffs. While Stark's focus in the linked article is more on the National League, the American League also could see a dramatic extra game before the dramatic new extra game now needed just to make it to the Division Series.

Hopefully, the weather will cooperate next week, and nothing will mess up what is setting up to be a very dramatic ending to the 2012 season. There are tight races in both the American League East and Central divisions, but the West has certainly done its part to add to this late-season excitement.

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THT book review: Yankee Miracles

David Wade — 2012-09-13T09:15:15+00:00

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AL West: look who’s coming to the divisional race

David Wade — 2012-08-13T09:09:15+00:00

Texas Rangers

Texas is still one of the best teams in baseball. That's been the familiar refrain of these American League West updates for the past couple of years. The Rangers continue to pummel teams with an unrelenting offense that scores runs better than any other team in baseball.

As we also expected, due to their huge additions via free-agency, Anaheim started playing its way into the division race. Of course, veteran stars like Albert Pujols got a lot of help as soon as the Angels called up a rookie who is putting together one of the most incredible seasons anyone has ever had.

Texas' starting rotation may represent its only area of concern. Injuries to Colby Lewis and Neftali Feliz have hurt what was a decent, but not dominant, rotation. Yu Darvish has done well, but his wildness keeps him from being a legitimate ace. Signing Roy Oswalt seemed like an easy decision at the time, but he has disappointed so far by posting a 6.53 ERA that, combined with the club's acquisition of Ryan Dempster, has pushed Oswalt to the bullpen.

There was a bit of drama last week when Oswalt asked to come out after two innings of relief in a close game, but management is downplaying it. Now they will hope that Dempster can pitch as well in the American League as he did in the relatively weak National League Central and that Oswalt can either shine in the bullpen or work his way back to the rotation.

With 8.55 strikeouts per nine innings and only 1.58 walks given up over the same rate, Oswalt may be due a much better stretch of pitching since right now he has a much higher-than-average BABIP and home runs given up per nine innings pitched. Hits are falling in against him more often than they have in his career, and fly balls are going over the fence more often than he's been accustomed to. In short, you could argue that he's been a little unlucky this season in comparison to his career numbers.

Scott Feldman has stepped in and provided some quality starts for Texas, and at one time the club was toying with the idea of stretching out Alexi Ogando for a possible spot in the rotation. For now, Ogando looks like he'll remain the Rangers' primary setup man.

Unlike the woes revolving around the Rangers' pitching, about the only drama facing the offense involved Josh Hamilton's recent slump due to continuing problems with addiction, although the latest case was something less threatening than the vices he has fought before.

While Hamilton has hinted that laying off Skoal has his swing in the spittoon, Dave Cameron over at Fangraphs has noted a couple of times that Hamilton simply swings at everything. When pitchers give him something around the plate, he hits at a pace that will put him in the discussion for the American League MVP. But when they pitch him away, he doesn't lay off. As a result, he swings his way into extended bouts of futility.

Anaheim Angels

As noted, the Angels also continue to play great baseball, and as everyone knows, that better baseball began when the club called up the spectacular Mike Trout.

Trout leads all of baseball in WAR, as calculated at Fangraphs. The stat, which factors defense in with hitting and compares a player's statistics versus a replacement-level player, rewards all-around players the most. "All-around player" describes Trout, as his combination of speed, power, and defense has led to comparisons to guys like Mickey Mantle and Alex Rodriguez.

Bryce Harper had the bigger buzz associated with his name as a call-up this season, but Trout has left Harper in his wake. Trout has produced so well that he has a chance to join Fred Lynn and Ichiro Suzuki as the only players to win both their league's Rookie of the Year and MVP awards in the same season.

While Trout has bolstered the Angels offense, their real strength—and the thing that could make them a favorite over Texas in a playoff series—still lies in their starting pitching. Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson, and Dan Haren already made up an imposing staff, but management augmented them further with the addition of Zack Greinke. If they can either pass Texas and win the division or secure one of the Wild Card spots, they will have the best four starting pitchers of any team that qualifies for the postseason.

But, as the Rangers and Angels march toward their inevitable late-season standoff, another team has unexpectedly joined the fight.

Oakland A's

The A's, under ownership hell-bent on moving to what they hope would be the greener pastures and greater tickets sales of San Jose, are in the midst of an incredible stretch of baseball that has seen them go in one month from a team struggling to reach a .500 record to one with hope of making the 2012 playoffs.

The Athletics' 19-5 record in July is what turned their season around. On the first day of the month, they avoided a four-game sweep at the hands of the Rangers by beating Darvish in Arlington. But the magic really began when they came home and swept the Boston Red Sox in a three-game series, with the last two wins coming in the bottom of the ninth. If momentum exists, for the Athletics it was born during that series.

In the second game of the series, Boston led 2-1 going to bat in its half of the final inning. After their first two batters reached base, the Red Sox decided to play for one insurance run. On an attempted sacrifice, Boston's Nick Punto bunted into a double play. That left Ryan Kalish at second base. He then tried to steal third but was thrown out. Missing an opportunity to pad their lead by making those outs on the basepaths proved fatal, as Oakland scored twice in the bottom of the inning to walk off with the win.

In the next series, this time against Seattle, Oakland won two of three, with both wins coming in extra innings. Chris Carter drilled a pinch-hit home run on July 6, and two days later, Oakland's eventual team MVP, Josh Reddick, doubled in the winning run in the bottom of the 13th inning.

After the All-Star break, Oakland swept Minnesota on the road and came back home to split a short series against Texas. Then came a four-game set hosting the Yankees in which every game ended in a one-run victory by the A's.

Oakland went on to win two series on the road against Toronto and Baltimore, scoring an out-of-character 48 runs to leave the drama back in Oakland. The A's ended July back at home hosting the Tampa Bay Rays, but the hot streak came to an end, as they only won one game of the four-game series. Still, their hot July has helped bring them level with Anaheim and only a handful of games behind Texas.

Powerhouses like Boston, Toronto, Baltimore, Tampa, New York, and Texas made up most of the schedule during Oakland's midsummer run and if they can take advantage of a much softer schedule over the next few weeks&,dash;one that features Cleveland, Minnesota, and Kansas City for 13 of their next 16 games—they may continue their entertaining climb up the standings.

Oakland's 13 walk-off wins have them well in reach of the major league season record of 18. The dramatic nature of so many of the A's wins has only increased the storybook nature of the season. But the real key to sustained success is grounded in the reality that their pitching is incredibly solid.

Oakland's late-inning heroics at the plate are due to timely hitting and certainly not to a consistent offense. For, as they have in the past few seasons, Oakland ranks near the bottom of the league in nearly every offensive category. But those troubles are offset by a pitching staff that is, conversely, one of the best in the league, even though three stalwarts from 2011 play for different teams.

Gone are Gio Gonzalez, Andrew Bailey, and Trevor Cahill, traded away for prospects this past winter. But, as usual, Oakland continues to call up young pitchers who step in and help the team right away. Jarrod Parker and Tommy Milone have done well while the A's have milked quality innings out of Bartolo Colon, who by all rights should be out of the game by now.

Seattle Mariners

Everyone knew Anaheim and Texas would battle for this division. Everyone also suspected that Seattle would not contend, and their trade of Ichiro to the Yankees a couple of weeks ago may signal that the team is going to try to build around Felix Hernandez and put together a team that could contend in a couple of seasons.

But it's those Oakland A's who are flipping the script and bringing an element of surprise into what we thought was a cut-and-dried story out West.

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AL West: heading to halfway

David Wade — 2012-07-01T10:46:15+00:00

American League West updates continue to follow the same pattern. Texas leads the division and seems to be a team with very few flaws. Anaheim has the talent to make a run at the Rangers, but in the past couple of seasons, the Angels' poor offensive numbers have kept them from overtaking Texas. The Oakland A's still want a new stadium, still keeps their payroll down, and still fail to threaten either of the teams in front of them. Seattle rounds out the division, posting a garden-variety season with one of the worst offenses in baseball.

Starting at the bottom and working our way up:

Seattle should make the biggest of moves and do all it can to trade Felix Hernandez.

Hernandez is having another good season, though not up to the standard he set in 2010 when he won the American League's Cy Young Award. So far, he is averaging a little over a strikeout every inning and has an ERA around 3.00. He's still only 26 years old. But, despite the obvious attraction for other teams, dealing Hernandez for an acceptable package won't be easy.

He is due almost $40 million in 2013 and 2014, which certainly limits the number of teams who'd line up to take on that much salary. He also has 10 teams he can block a trade to, including big spenders like the Yankees and Red Sox. But, just because he can veto a trade, it does not mean he can't be traded to one of the teams on his list. It would just require his consent, and likely a huge extension on his contract, with Hernandez and his agent negotiating from a position of power.

Of course, Hernandez will already be in that position if he just rides out his current deal with Seattle. Then he'd be free to turn down a lucrative offer and go to another team and essentially be the pitching version of Albert Pujols.

At this point, Seattle has to see if it can get a return on him. While he's one of the best pitchers in the game, the suppressed offense we see across baseball means he's not as unusual a talent as he once was. The Mariners can't continue to pay him while they have no chance to contend for a division title. It's the same reason they should let Ichiro Suzuki walk after his contract runs out this season. The team needs help across the board, and the money would be better spent spread across four or five players than on just one good player and one who's clearly past his prime.

We won't even discuss Chone Figgins.

As for Oakland: The A's remain committed to committing to very little for the future, save a move to a new stadium. The Giants continue to fight any such move to Oakland's dream destination of San Jose, since they fear a drop in their ticket sales in San Francisco. Major League Baseball, moving at what feels like the speed of a 20-year sentence in San Quentin, still hasn't decided whether it'll let Oakland move.

Billy Beane is running out of good players to trade, so it's time to start acquiring the AL West's most glaring market deficiency—offense. Let's face it, other than the Rangers and two hitters on the Angels, no one in the American League West can hit very well. Three of the (current) four stadiums kill fly balls, so pitching is not as big a need as hitting. Pitching is what teams need to be playoff contenders, and with their stadium situation in flux, the A's have little interest in being one of those right now.

The Angels, who are playoff contenders, have already done one of the best things they could to improve their chances of qualifying for the postseason by committing to Mike Trout.

As the graph at the top of this post shows, starting around the third week of May, the Angels started winning more and more games and started meeting the expectations many held for them going into the season.

Sometimes we talk about how the Angels have done this by noting that right around that time, Pujols finally remembered how to hit. Since May 22, Pujols has hit over .340, posted an OBP over .415 and put up a slugging percentage around .640. That's the Albert Pujols Angels management paid all that money for, and it's the Albert Pujols who can lead a team deep into the postseason.

Other times we talk about how the Angels' improved play began a short while after the organization called up Trout. He seems determined to do the impossible by making Bryce Harper take a back seat to his exploits. Trout has been fantastic since his call-up, putting up a .917 OPS while stealing 22 bases and making great defensive plays. He's been selected to the All-Star game and is the runaway leader for American League Rookie of the Year honors.

As great as those two have been, it's Vernon Wells who may be the most important player in regard to Anaheim's turnaround.

It's not Wells' fault that Toronto grossly overpaid for him years ago. It's not his fault that Anaheim made one of the worst trades ever for him, either. What he is culpable for is playing his entire career with a swing-at-everything approach. That style of hitting has produced long periods of terrific hitting. Unfortunately, it has also produced periods of miserable offensive numbers, like his first season with the Angels last year, when he hit .218/.248/.412.

Wells went down with a thumb injury that third week of May and his team took off. He can return from the injury, probably right after the All-Star break, but decisions will need to be made since the Angels are getting better offensively. No, they're still not high scorers like Texas, but they score well enough to let manager Mike Scioscia roll with weak-hitting catcher Bobby Wilson while Chris Iannetta recovers from injury. As we all know, Scioscia has to have a catcher who can't hit or he's not happy.

You will notice on the graph that Texas has responded to the Angels' charge by going on a nice little run of its own the past couple of weeks, which is exactly what one of the best teams in baseball is capable of.

Regular readers of this feature, unless they are Rangers fans, are probably tired of coming here just to see, over and over, that yes, Texas has a complete offense that rates as one of the best in baseball. But it's that pitching that makes the Rangers so dangerous. In addition to the Rangers' norm of hanging around the top of the American League in runs, they also boast the third best ERA in the league. Colby Lewis, Matt Harrison and the talented and wild Yu Darvish form a solid core of pitching that will only improve if Neftali Feliz can make his expected return from injury sometime after the All-Star break.

Anaheim was expected to challenge Texas before the start of the season. If the Angels continue playing as well as they have lately, they can live up to that task. They still have room to improve the offense, and perhaps they will be in the market for a bat at the trade deadline, one that could possibly put an end to Texas' division domination. With the Rangers looking good, it would take a trade as lopsided as the Wells fiasco, but only in their favor.

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A.J. Ellis is making the most of it

David Wade — 2012-06-07T09:13:15+00:00

By now, most baseball fans know about A.J. Ellis. This time last year, hardly any had heard of him. The starting catcher for the Dodgers, after spending about a decade in Los Angeles' minor league system, won the starting job during this year's spring training at age 31 and is now putting up the best season for any catcher in baseball.

At the plate, he's using a skill he first developed in Little League and then later mastered over parts of nine seasons in the minors. That skill, the ability to draw walks, is the most obvious reason he is having so much success as a starter. But even though statistics like his 336 walks in 543 minor league games compared to only 283 strikeouts over the same period show an incredibly disciplined hitter, there's more to him than that.

Though at first glance it looks as though Ellis has come out of nowhere, we can focus in a little and see a talented high school player who excelled at several positions at Dunbar High School in Lexington, Ky. After he went to college in Tennessee, at Austin Peay University, he played four spectacular years and earned All-OVC honors every season.

Over those four years at Austin Peay, Ellis played a couple of different roles before he settled into the catcher position. It was his play behind the plate, showcasing his outstanding arm, that first drew the attention of Marty Lamb, an area scout for the Dodgers.

Lamb liked Ellis's throwing accuracy, but loved the consistency of that accuracy. It seemed every game the Los Angeles scout saw, Ellis put every throw—including every throw down to second in between innings—at the bag where the runner's foot would be. Every single time.

Lamb still remembers a throw Ellis made about 10 years ago with a right-handed hitter in the box—but it didn't even involve a baserunner. After his pitcher recorded a strikeout, Ellis wanted to fire the ball down to third, and around the horn. But, the hitter hadn't left the box yet, and with no direct line of sight to the bag, Ellis basically threw a hook shot around the batter. And the throw was still accurate.

So Lamb kept coming back, and Ellis kept gunning down baserunners. But it wasn't just Ellis' defense that impressed. When asked about the part of Ellis' game that has made the Dodgers catcher fantasy baseball's version of finding a $50 bill in the pocket of an old jacket, Lamb knew the money was there the whole time.

"Oh, his bat stood out in college. I mean, we're talking about a guy who left the school as their all-time hit leader, so it's not real surprising to see him hitting now."

On Lamb's recommendation, Los Angeles selected Ellis in the 18th round of the 2003 draft.

After dominating his competition as an amateur, Ellis ran into some bad luck when he broke his wrist at the very beginning of his professional career. That injury cost him his first season, and since he turned pro after four years of college, as far as prospects go he was already getting a little old.

For instance, Russell Martin was drafted in a similar spot the year before Ellis (for Martin, the 17th round) but Ellis is two years older than Martin. With Ellis coming off an injury and Martin looking like the player with the higher ceiling, Ellis was mostly a backup in his two years in the Florida State League.

In 2006, the Dodgers promoted Ellis to Double-A, where he played in 82 games and put up a nice OBP of .383. His power, however, was non-existent. A nice run in the Arizona Fall league of that year seemed to spark him and when he repeated the level in 2007 he hit eight home runs in 430 plate appearances. But he wasn't wowing the organization with his power. Lamb remembers talking to one of the local coaches around that time and they were wondering if A.J. should try to hit for more power to draw the organization's attention. Lamb remembers thinking that if Ellis just concentrated on his hitting, the power "would take care of itself."

It's been reported several times that Ellis essentially decided he would simply try to make himself the best player he could and give up the idea of trying to do different things to catch someone's eye. He had planned to serve out his contract and get enough experience to land a college coaching job. But, after he decided to rededicate himself to the game, things started to come together.

In a little over 1,000 plate appearances from 2008-2011 in the Pacific Coast League, a minor league level with a reputation for propping up players' power numbers, Ellis hit only six home runs. But, his real value at the plate started to stand out. In his time there, he walked a lot more than he struck out and he posted an OBP well over .400, despite the fact he still wasn't a home run threat.

He also bounced back and forth with the big club during that time, backing up catchers like Brad Ausmus or Dioner Navarro, guys who had more major league experience. But those brief stints with the big club convinced Ellis that he could handle the competition.

And handle it he has. Since winning the starting job during spring training, Ellis has even at times carried the Dodgers. His surprising bat has turned into an essential component of the lineup, what with superstar Matt Kemp missing time with an injured hamstring. With his OPS over .900 and a CS% over .40, he's challenging Carlos Ruiz and his .358 batting average for the title of best catcher in baseball so far this season.

Ellis' BABIP sits at .379, a number that isn't propped up by a 31-year-old catcher who is beating out a bunch of infield hits. That will be a hard standard to maintain, although not impossible. The .379 is supported by a LD% of 22.9 and, as a general rule, hitters who smack line drives all over the field tend to keep that BABIP average high. While hitting line drives is something Ellis has done his whole life, the challenge will be keeping it up as pitchers adjust to his patient approach at the plate.

Maybe Ellis' arduous journey has forged the strength he'll need to play at this level over the course of an entire season.

"He's always had the intangibles," said Lamb. "You could just tell he was the kind of guy who could grind it out and work hard and keep improving."

If nothing else, he's making the most of his opportunity. Like any worthwhile player, he's made some internet fame for his sense of humor. Perhaps he'll continue to entertain us when he makes the National League All-Star team.

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AL West: Oh, the storylines

David Wade — 2012-05-21T09:08:15+00:00

Texas is, as expected, playing well and leading the American League West. Seattle is, as expected, playing poorly and is in last place. But the other two teams in the division are not following their expected paths.

On one hand, the Oakland A's are a surprise at the moment, outperforming expectations and doing so in part with what appears to be smoke and mirrors. On the other, Albert Pujols, possibly the greatest hitter of our generation, started the 2012 season in horrific fashion, and that has played a big role in why the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are struggling when most thought they would be fighting Texas for first place.

By now, Pujols' struggles are well known. He's swinging at more pitches out of the zone than he ever has before. This is something he started doing a little more a few years ago, but he has taken it to a new level this season. As a result, he's walking a lot less often than he used to, and he's striking out a lot more often than he used to. For Pujols, this is uncharted territory. However, for the rest of his new team, it is familiar ground. It's the type of approach Anaheim has had for years.

The Angels fired hitting coach Mickey Hatcher last week. Hatcher had served in that role since the 2000 season.

Looking back, his first year as hitting coach was the only time his team finished in the top half of the American League in walks. That organizational disdain for the base on balls, whether necessitated by personnel or by Hatcher's design, has led to below-average levels of team on-base percentage in all but four years of the former coach's reign. In three of those four good years, the team's OBP was propped up by American League-leading team batting average. Dave Schoenfield talked about this over at ESPN at the time of Hatcher's firing and pointed out that the Angels' approach at the plate mirrored Hatcher's own approach as a player.

While we may not be able to place this squarely at the feet of Hatcher, there's no doubt that the teams he coached always tried to hit their way on. We can assume the message was never to chase bad pitches. We might also assume no one would tell Albert Pujols to change his approach. But for whatever the reason—organizational methodology, the pressures of being on a new team, or signing a huge contract—Pujols, a guy who has had a season with more strikeouts than walks only once in his career (his rookie year), is currently fitting in with his new co-workers by taking on their hacking ways.

This is not what Anaheim needed. The Angels needed the Pujols who patiently waits for pitches to destroy. They needed him to lay off balls out of the zone and take his walks. They needed him to help the team post an OBP better than the .312 they averaged the last two years.

Hatcher's dismissal is not the only sign that Anaheim is looking in a new direction. The club called up its top prospect, Mike Trout, who has immediately established himself as one of the more patient hitters in the lineup, which is a little like saying Job was a little more patient than a bunch of sugar-fueled toddlers.

The good news for Anaheim is that Pujols seems to be coming around a bit at the plate lately. The bad news is that it looks like his days of being a eight-to-10 win player in terms of WAR are over, and that his days of posting a .440 OBP are probably over, as well. If that's the case, the Angels will probably once again finish near the bottom of the American League in runs scored. And if that's the case, the pitching staff will have to be exceptional in order to compete with Texas.

Luckily, they have exceptional pitchers, with Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson, and Dan Haren. Haren has started 2012 slowly but should be able to turn things around and join Wilson and Weaver to form a trio of guys that could keep hopes alive. Weaver has already thrown a no-hitter this season and annually contends for the American League Cy Young Award, while the other two would be front-line starters on several other teams.

While Anaheim has disappointed, Oakland has been a pleasant surprise for the few fans who are actually attending A's games. Oakland is working some magic on the mound, ranking near the top of the American League in ERA while simultaneously ranking toward the bottom in strikeouts. Their pitchers' ability to coax opposing batters into hitting into most of their outs might be paramount for them to stay around .500. The owner wants to move, and frankly, increased revenue from a move to a better park may be the only way for them to compete in the future.

Texas' best pitcher, on the other hand, is getting his opponents out with pure smoke and no mirrors.

Texas' ace, Yu Darvish came to the Rangers with a huge amount of fanfare, and for the most part, he has responded by being one of the most exciting pitchers in the game. His collection of pitches is as varied as it is breathtaking. His curveball alone is must-see viewing since it's a pitch he can vary in both velocity and break.

Darvish started the year struggling with his command, but he seems to be working toward a better understanding of working to major league hitters, who may be holding off on Darvish's pitches a little more than what he saw in Japan. Still, the strikeout rate (he's averaging 10 strikeouts per nine innings pitched) is a direct reflection of his stuff.

Unlike Oakland's staff, Darvish is posting his excellent ERA by making opponents swing and miss. We haven't quite reached "Fernandomania" levels in Arlington, but the love for Darvish is strong. His home starts always end with rousing ovations and an acknowledgement to the fans.

Texas manager Ron Washington is not easing Darvish into life in the big leagues. "Wash" has moved the 25-year-old up a day a couple of times to keep him on the same five-day pitching schedule all year. Darvish finished last season on a similar schedule but had been used to having five days off in between starts before that change, and it might be interesting to see how he handles pitching more frequently as the year goes on.

Also of note, Darvish's penchant for strikeouts, walks, and very few runs allowed means he works deep into games and racks up pitches. But he seems like a strong kid, with a build that might allow him to challenge Detroit's Justin Verlander as far as being the biggest workhorse in the game.

Darvish also rivals Verlander in another aspect—watchability. His starts are exhilarating.

Darvish's teammate, Josh Hamilton, continues to serve as protagonist in one of the most compelling stories in sports. He blasted four home runs against Baltimore on May 8, he leads the league in homers, RBIs and batting average, and he's making some of us think that if he can stay healthy, he may actually make a run at the Triple Crown. He also leads the league in OBP, slugging, and total bases, and he's doing all this in a contract year.

Rangers management is facing a very difficult decision regarding Hamilton. His much-publicized fight with addiction makes him a long-term risk. And it's not just a relapse they have to worry about, but the damage he did to his body in his early 20s may also come back to haunt him.

But this has been the refrain with Hamilton since his return to the game. In many ways, he is a ticking time bomb set to go off at any point should he find a bottle in front of him. But if that doesn't happen, and if he can stay productive throughout his mid-30s, he could have one of the most unique careers in baseball history, providing moments like his four-homer game every now and then while making us constantly wonder how much better he could have been.

However, those long-term concerns don't really matter to us now in regard to who will win the West this season. Seattle's early struggles seem to be the kind that will last the whole year. Oakland may be able to hang around like it is now, and the return of Manny Ramirez could help keep the A's afloat. Texas is playing like the talented and deep team that it is.

That leaves Anaheim as the team most likely to see a dramatic turnaround. Despite the Angels' offensive troubles, there is too much talent on the team, particularly on the pitching staff, for them to continue to struggle. But again, that Texas team is so good that it looks like Anaheim may have to set its sights on one of the two Wild Card spots in the American League. Their odds will get better if the Angels' superstar starts to play more like he's accustomed to.

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THT review: Great Hitting Pitchers

David Wade — 2012-05-10T09:36:15+00:00

Great Hitting Pitchers is one of the earliest works put out by the Society for American Baseball Research, also know as SABR. SABR first published the piece in 1979, with the editing handled by the Society's founder, Bob Davids. Mike Cook, currently helping with digital publications, has updated this look at hitting pitchers with statistics and information pertaining to hurlers since 1979.

This is not a narrative of the history of pitchers and their exploits at the plate. Instead, this work is a barrage of historic facts that come at you like one Bob Feller fastball after another. The style would please William Zinsser. It is direct. Long and winding sentences have no place in it.

It's obviously well-researched. Some of the most interesting bits were dug up from the earliest years of baseball, when pitchers were players who might start 50 games in a season on the mound and play the balance in the outfield or at first base. As you know, information and statistics are not easily accessed from games from so long ago. The gang at SABR is built for just this kind of research.

Incredible baseball work is done every day using tools like the Internet and projects like baseball-reference. SABR uses those tools, but their staple is digging up records over 100 years old. That's where some of the most amazing parts of this work come from—from that era when pitchers like Guy Hecker would do it all, and sometimes even manage the club.

Many of the most impressive single game hitting records come from that era. Since they pitched more often, and since they pitched complete games much, much more often—pitchers came to the plate so much that sometimes pitchers produced spectacular numbers at the plate. One such stretch by Hecker in 1886 saw the American Association pitcher for Louisville rack up 23 hits in a seven game stretch in games where he pitched. Hecker once had six hits in a game, but others were able to rack up five, which is incredible in its own right.

As noted, this a compilation of factual tidbits, so the reader is in a way forced to think a little about the backstories or circumstances surrounding them. It may even prompt the hardcore baseball fan—for whom this seems to be written—to pause and wander off on their own little expedition to find out more about a player or game.

For instance, you will find that Doc Crandall led all pitchers in 1919 with a .309 batting average. And, mentioned almost as matter-of-factly, you also find that in a game in August of that same year, Crandall was struck by lightening while on the mound with two outs in the ninth inning. The authors note that Crandall recovered quickly and recorded the third out to finish the game and the reader's interest is almost certainly peaked.

When we reach the revised portion of the book, covering years since 1980, you can see the use of contemporary statistics like fWar and OPS+. This section reads a lot more like what readers of this website are accustomed to, as well as what's seen elsewhere, like Baseball Prospectus or Fangraphs. While it didn't throw me at all, it seemed like there would have been a place for a note on these more advanced metrics.

It's become a common complaint that we sometimes get a little too hung up on the numbers at the expense of context or without fully laying out how the particular statistic is formulated. I don't need the fWar formulation anymore, but other readers might not be able to stay in stride when hitting the review since 1979. But, since this is more of an encyclopedic look at pitchers at the plate, the bare facts and numbers don't mess with the product. Even though the newly added chapter works in the advanced metrics, it's not a radical departure from the setup of the previous chapters.

The authors also uncovered a multitude of facts surrounding pitchers once they reached base. In the chapter on baserunning, some equally impressive single game totals are sure to entertain, including the story of "Faber's frolic"—a silly gambit that resulted in three steals in one inning for Red Faber.

From the silly to the spectacular, Great Hitting Pitchers is packed with facts. It's a smaller piece, but so is the price attached to it. If you are interested in minutia, or particularly fond of stats from baseball's beginning years, give this a shot. It's available here, in digital format, for a reasonable price of $5.95.

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Will a non-fantasy writer win THT’s fantasy league?

David Wade — 2012-04-18T08:59:15+00:00

My experience is limited, I didn't go in with any concrete plan, and I didn't really have any specific players in mind to target. So why in the world do I feel like I came out of The Hardball Times fantasy league's auction with the best team?

For this entry to make any sense, you may need to glance at THT's fantasy auction results found here. Fantasy guru, beer aficionado, and pestering trade-proposer Jeffrey Gross laid out the results of our auction in that article. Unfortunately, his recap didn't contain any predictions on who would win the league.

That's where this entry comes in.

There are months of the unknown ahead. This team must dodge injuries to key players (which I've already suffered a few). It must also avoid historic flameouts like Adam Dunn's 2011 season. But, if it can do that, it should post some of the best offensive totals in the league.

Here are the players in all their splendor and magnificence-

C: Chris Iannetta
1B: Adam Lind
2B: Ian Kinsler
SS: Kevin Youkilis
3B: Elvis Andrus
CI: Alex Rodriguez
MI: Daniel Murphy
OF: Matt Kemp
OF: Ryan Braun
OF: Melky Cabrera
OF: Mike Trout
UT: Jesus Montero
UT: Justin Smoak
SP: Jered Weaver
SP: Brandon McCarthy
SP: Ryan Dempster
RP: Drew Storen
RP: Jonathan Papelbon
P: Ted Lilly
P: Kyle Farnsworth
P: Gavin Floyd
P: Tim Stauffer
BN: Gaby Sanchez
BN: Drew Pomeranz
BN: R.A. Dickey
BN: Josh Collmenter
BN: Mike Leake

Leake, Collmenter and Dickey are already gone, and Trevor Cahill has taken their place, as well as have a few other set-up men with good K/9 ratios. Trout is on the bench until the Angels find out they simply can no longer tolerate Vernon Wells. But, that's beside the point. Going with that group, after the auction, is what I want you to judge, if you're so inclined.

The draft opened, after a lengthy delay waiting for, I believe, one of the guys who writes code for this site to figure out how to log in to Yahoo. Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw were nominated first and fetched $30 and $29 respectively. Once I saw the price for a Cy Young caliber pitcher, I quickly decided I'd be best served spending a large portion of my budget on offense.

Of course, that's not radical at all. It seems most fantasy players in an auction format budget the bulk of their money on hitters and those in snake drafts generally leave the pitchers for later rounds. But the bidding for those two was so fiesty, and I felt like I detected a vibe. Something else factored in as well.

The chat room, which was full of all types of witty one-liners and barbs—mostly from me—was a lot of fun. It was also informative. The first sign of my relative lack of experience, which I referenced above, came when I asked whether our limit of 1,500 innings pitched was an upper or lower limit. The league I've played in has a minimum of 1,400 innings so no one can buy six closers and run away with three categories (saves, ERA, and WHIP).

Mr. Gross explained that the 1,500 in this league was a maximum to prevent an owner from streaming pitchers. With that simple declaration, my fate was sealed. Any effort to hide my lack of experience vanished when I asked what the hell "streaming pitchers" meant. Gross said people could potentially keep rolling starting pitchers out in daily transaction leagues to guarantee loads of points in wins and strikeouts.

I didn't have time to look it up that night, given that it was 20 feet from the computer to the refrigerator that housed the Bud Lites, that it was another 10 feet to the bathroom, and that the auction clock was incessant, but I was intrigued and later found through research that this is a very controversial strategy. Some fantasy baseball players feel they should be rewarded for working the waiver wire like mad and making constant adjustments to their lineup. However, others believe streaming pitchers is akin to taking the colored stickers of a Rubik's cube and rearranging them to solve the puzzle. To them, it's cheating and transforms a game of skill into a joke.

Anyway, back to the topic. Even though the cat was out of the bag as far as my ignorance of certain types of fantasy baseball lingo, my confidence was, as it always is, unshaken. I quickly jumped in the early bidding, when people are sometimes a little slow to let loose with their money, and won Kemp for $46, Braun for $43, and Kinsler for $37—all in short order. Once that happened, I felt pretty good about my chances since I owned three of the best five-category players in fantasy baseball.

Now, there were repercussions. I had spent almost half of my budget on those three. As a result, Andrus was my only addition over the course of the next hour or so of bids. Then, with most of us already through a heavy-spending spree, bidding started to swing to the point where value could be found. I was able to get Weaver ($18) for half of what Cliff Lee ($36) went for 45 minutes earlier.

I also started looking for rebound players like A-Rod and Youkilis, whom I was able to get for markedly less than what Ryan Zimmerman had gone for not long before.

By that point, I was pretty low on cash and bought a couple of closers. Then I spent the rest of the evening drinking beer and waiting for guys I could get for a dollar. It turns out that I could have punted the rest of the draft and got similar talent to what I scraped up at the end, but that would have meant the utter shame of leaving money on the table and the jerk move of letting my time slowly run down before autodraft kicked in.

Now, I had no intentions of spending as much as I did, as early as I did. But, as much as I love Miguel Cabrera, guys like Braun and Kemp will steal a ton of bases and the fact that I was getting them for less than Miggy (albeit not much less) made me keep hitting the bid button.

With no plans going in to follow a modified LIMA plan, I ended up doing just about exactly what Jeff Gross wrote about here, pointing out that there is a surplus of decent pitching in recent seasons and grabbing one great starter to anchor a bunch of waiver fodder and late-inning specialists can reap rewards. It's akin to Ron Shandler's modification of the LIMA plan, which he calls the SANTANA plan.

Whatever you call it, it looks a little like what I did, except I did pay a little for closers Farnsworth and Storen, who have both started the year on the disabled list.

Whether it will pay off remains to be seen. I think the offense has a chance to be really good, given the balance from top to bottom, which should translate into high totals in all five categories. Another great year from Weaver and a few lucky waiver wire adds should be enough to take Dave's Diamonds to internet baseball glory.

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