Replay Revisited

I don't get many visitors here so my poll data is largely completely useless. But being as this is a useless blog why not talk about the useless polls?

I asked if MLB should expand the use of replay and the results as of now (you still have 7 hours to vote!) is a resounding NO. 100% of the voters (all two of them) prefer not to expand the use of replay. I think when asked that question the first thing people think of is umpires, and that expanding the use of replay means having computers deciding balls and strikes. So I'm not surprised that nobody (all two of them) was in favor of expanding replay. However, if I asked a more specific question I think at least 50% (one voter) would vote yes. A question like should MLB expand the use of replay for plays at the plate in the 9th inning or later, or should teams be allowed to review a play at any base one time per game, I think we would get a different reaction than the general question I asked.

Bud Selig's days are numbered, and once he leaves I think within 5 years at the most we will see an expanded use of replay. It's very hard to argue with someone wanting the correct call, and although I don't see baseball ever getting to the point where robots call balls and strikes, I think you'd have to be pretty naive to think it will stay this way. One issue people have with baseball is that it is too slow and adding replay would only add to its slowness, but there are several measures MLB could take to counteract this:

• Limit the amount of mound visits allowed, and time taken during each mound visit. In fact, you could argue to get rid of mound visits entirely that don't involved taking out a pitcher.
• Limit the amount of pitching changes. This one gets tricky as you can't force a team to keep an ineffective pitcher in the game, but there is certainly something to be done here.
• Is it necessary to have a pitcher throw over 4 times for an intentional walk? Just have the pitcher state they want to walk the hitter, and have the ump award the hitter first base.

There are other ways to speed up the game that I don't agree with most notably, forcing batters to stay in the box, or having a limit on the time between pitches. Every player has his routine, and forcing them to change that for a matter of seconds seems silly. Sure I loathed watching Steve Trachsel pitch, but I don't think it's fair to now force him to change his rhythm (if he is still even pitching). Anyways, if one of the arguments against a slight increase in replay is that it will slow down the game, I think we have sufficient ways to help counter that.

The other argument against replay is that baseball should never change. Well in that case these ideas would obviously be frowned upon and baseball should stay the same forever. Frankly, I think that's pretty stupid. I wasn't around when the NBA adopted the 3 point line, but I bet the NBA faced it's share of criticism then. And now the only criticism you may hear is that it's too short. This isn't the XFL adding stupid gimmicky rules to "improve" the game, in this case change isn't a bad thing, in fact it's likely good thing.

Most Underrated Ever?

I don't know about the most (not that he isn't), but Aaron Gleeman helps show us just how underrated Frank Thomas was/is:

Because of what has happened to power numbers and power hitters during the past decade or so Thomas is often talked about as just another great slugger from this era, but that misses the boat in a big way. Albert Pujols is the best player in baseball and surely everyone would agree that at 29 years old he's on track to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but look at his numbers compared to Thomas' stats at the same age:

               G       PA      AVG      OBP      SLG     OPS+
Pujols      1312     5696     .334     .426     .628     171
Thomas      1076     4789     .330     .452     .600     182

Pujols has hit .334 with a 1.054 OPS, whereas Thomas hit .330 with a 1.052 OPS through the age of 29. Plus, Thomas' twenties came in a slightly lower-scoring era, which is why his adjusted OPS+ of 182 tops Pujols at 171. Pujols has two MVPs and one batting title while twice leading the league in OPS. Before his 30th birthday Thomas had two MVPs and one batting title while leading the league in OPS four times.

Frank Thomas was Albert Pujols before Albert Pujols. And while it remains to be seen what Pujols does after turning 30, Thomas hit .276/.389/.515 with 264 homers and a 134 OPS+ in 1,246 games. To put that into some context, consider that Jim Rice had a 128 OPS+ for his entire "Hall of Fame career." Add his amazing twenties to his very good thirties and Thomas is a career .301/.419/.555 hitter with 521 homers and a 156 OPS+.

We shouldn't confuse best hitters with best players, but any way you want to slice it Frank Thomas is one of the best hitters that has played this game. Nobody is going to forget the fact that Griffey played a dazzling center field, but when you consider the fact his career high OPS+ is 171, and that Thomas' average OPS+ from his first 8 years is over 10% better you can start to see how underrated Thomas is. All you can hear now is Pujols, Pujols, Pujols, I wonder why back then Thomas didn't garner that respect. Also, as much as people want to believe Pujols' career has been clean (and I'm not saying it hasn't been), the fact is nobody, not one player in the major leagues, can consider themselves absolved of the steroid controversy as much as Frank Thomas can.

If Frank Thomas joined his colleagues and used PEDS, what would his career look like? Take a look at this graph of Thomas' career with wOBA, courtesy of FanGraphs:

What you see is likely a typical career arch. Thomas was clearly an incredible player who had his peak, had a clear decline phase, and had some late career surges sprinkled in where he was able to stay healthy and effective for an entire season. It's impossible to say what affect using steroids would have on Thomas, but I don't think it's out of the question to expect something like Thomas' 2001 and 2004 years to be the norm in his 30s instead of the exception. I mean just compare it to Barry Bonds' graph:

Or Mark McGwire:

Now that is just not normal. I say this because although Thomas shouldn't need any help getting in the hall of fame, the fact is some of his peers did things, let's say a little different than him. From 1990-2009, the only players with a better OPS+ than Thomas are: Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols, and Mark McGwire. That's it. Manny Ramirez is tied with Thomas and he hasn't necessarily faced his decline phase yet. That's a common theme here (lack of decline phases) considering that Bonds, McGwire, and Manny all used certain substances to avoid that dreaded (but necessary) phase. So yea, there is a case Thomas has been if not the best certainly the top 2-3 hitters of his time, and if you compare that with the lack of praise the guy gets, I think I now agree with Gleeman, he's the most underrated hitter of all time.

We also can't just forget that The Big Hurt is one of the best nicknames, ever. I assume you can tie it, but how does one top The Big Hurt? In Thomas' era we had The Crime Dog, The Big Cat. Now the best we have are shortened names like HanRam, ManRam, ARod and Krod, kind of pathetic. The Astros are doing their best to keep up with The Big Puma and El Caballo, but they need some help.

Bullpen Or Rotation: Neftali Feliz

The Rangers best pitching prospect (and now that Price and Hanson have been called up, arguably the bet pitching prospect in the game not tied to SF) Neftali Feliz, has been moved to the bullpen in AAA. They will see how he adjusts there and if all goes well he will be called up to improve the Rangers bullpen. The Rangers did this earlier in the year calling up Derek Holland to pitch out of the pen until he moved into the rotation.

Now, I know what you are wondering, did I bring this up to mention Joba again? You betcha. Last night Joba had one of his best starts this year throwing 6.1 innings striking out 5 with no walks, and giving up only 2 earned runs. Pretty good right? One would say that's better than a scoreless 8th inning, especially considering that in June the Yankees pen has an ERA under 3 and a k/9 over 9. I'm not sure what the Rangers plan on doing with Feliz for the duration of this year, will he be there just to help out the pen like the Rangers are saying, or will he be eased into the rotation like Derek Holland has been? Forget the fact Holland hasn't been that successful in the rotation after a few starts, bringing up pitchers and easing them into the big leagues is a fine idea. So is using all your resources to win baseball games, and the Rangers currently tied for the lead with the Angels in the AL West should try to do just that.

My point here (if I have one) is that if Feliz pitches admirably out of the bullpen this year, the long term plan is for Feliz to be a starter. It's a known fact that a pitcher, any pitcher really, pitches better out of the bullpen than the rotation, so regardless of Feliz' success he'll be a starter, just like Joba. If the Yankees decided to rest Joba's arm in 2007 instead of bringing him up as a reliever, would anyone in the world think that a 23 year old with an ERA under 4 be turned into a reliever so he can be "groomed" as a closer, a position which may not be open for 2 or 3 years? Umm, I don't think so. Bottom line: this is a smart move by Texas, just like it was for the Yankees and I think both situations will work out fine, it already has for the Yankees.

UPDATE: Fangraphs has a post about this same subject. They disagree with me pretty much 100% calling it a demotion and a stupid move. They definitely are more educated on this than I am, but I kind of assume he's being eased into the big leagues for a future rotation spot. I said it's also good for a team to try to win a division, and I guess I still stand by that, but if the Rangers plan to use Feliz in the pen for the entire year, than yea it's dumb move. Unless of course the Rangers feel his future is in the bullpen in which I can't necessarily blame them, but they haven't said that yet and half a season in the pen would kill his innings totals that he would need for next year. So bottom line I think the Rangers are bringing him along slowly to the majors in the bullpen to help that weakness but only for a temporary amount of time until he is put in their rotation (which Carruth aptly says also stinks), which I have no problems with. If they keep him there for the entire season while Padilla, McCarthy, and Harrison stink then I have a big problem with this, but I'll give Daniels and the Rangers the benefit of the doubt for now.

Best Pitches

ESPN's Christopher Harris does a nice weekly fantasy rundown of starting pitchers. This week he looked at the pitches that they throw.

Accoring to Harris:
Best Fastball- Josh Johnson
Best Curveball- Adam Wainwright
Best Slider- Ryan Dempster
Best Cutter- Roy Halladay
Best Change- Tim Lincecum

Lucky for us, fangraphs has a tool to help measure this- Pitch Type Linear Weights.
The leaders in runs above average per pitch type are:

Fastball
1.) Dan Haren 16.5
2.) Josh Johnson 15.3
3.) Justin Verlander 14.0
4.) Matt Cain 13.4
5.) Zach Greinke 13.4

Curveball
1.) Roy Halladay 11.5
2.) Adam Wainwright 11.1
3.) Javier Vazquez 9.9
4.) AJ Burnett 9.1
5.) Chad Billingsly 8.1

Slider
1.) Zach Greinke 11.2
2.) Ryan Dempster 10.2
3.) Adam Wainwright 7.7
4.) Paul Maholm 7.6
5.) Matt Garza 7.3

Cutter
1.) Roy Hallday 12.0
2.) Scott Feldman 10.7
3.) John Danks 6.8
4.) John Lester 5.8
5.) Dan Haren 5.3

Change
1.) Tim Lincecum 14.8
2.) Brian Tallet 9.7
3.) Zach Duke 9.7
4.) CC Sabathia 9.7
5.) Felix Hernandez 7.7

Damn nice work by Harris. His choices were all in the top 5 according to pitch value, and his honorable mentions were all in the top 10. This also confirms how damn good Halladay, Haren, and Greinke are. Easily the 3 best pitchers so far this year, it shows up in their pitch types. All have 2 pitches that rank among the leagues best. Halladay has arguably the best cutter and curveball, Greinke the best fastball and slider, and Haren the best fastball and cutter. So if you want to be a top pitcher all you need to have is one pitch that is better than anyone else in the game, and another pitch that ranks in the top 10, easy enough.

Void Please

On the heels of Joel Sherman's idea that each team should be allowed to void one contract, MLBTradeRumors proposed the question, which contract would you get rid of?

Some obvious names:

• Barry Zito who is still owed $94.5m for 2009-2013, we all know how dumb this was then and more so now.
  
• Alex Rodriguez who is still owed a whopping $248m for 2009-2017. That's not even counting a possible $30m for breaking the home run record. Why did the Yankees offer him this? Would another team really give Arod $300m? Stupid.
• Travis Hafner is still owed $49m for 2009-2012, although when he's been in the lineup he's been successful this year, .421 wOBA in line with his performance that earned him the extension.
  
• This one kind of goes under the radar a bit, Vernon Wells is still owed over $100m until 2014. The bad part about his contract is it's backloaded. The Blue Jays only paid him $.5m in 2008 and $1.5m in 2009. Tough for a small market team to be paying a 36 year old Wells $23m. He used to at least be a stud CF, but last year and this year he ranks as one of the worst CFs according to UZR. Riccardi is regretting this one hard.
• Alfonso Soriano is still owed $106m from 2009-2014. Everyone knew the end of the contract would bite the Cubs in the ass, but they didn't think the beginning would. The Cubs fans at least would gladly pay $136m for a ring but they couldn't do any damage in the playoffs last year and this year he is having the worst year of his career. Seriously, worse than his rookie year, he's only batting .224. This has gone largely unnoticed, I don't think it will stay that way.
  

Some other ones of note: Dontrelle Willis, Julio Lugo, JD Drew (although really Drew hasn't been that bad, he just hasn't been that good), Carlos Lee is still owed around $74m even though he is a good player that's a lot for an average team especially when it seems like Lee can't run or field any more, Kei Igawa, Kenshin Kawakami, Dice-K (mostly the posting fee but still), Bill Hall, and obviously many more.

What's interesting is a lot of the Japanese imports show up. You have to pay a lot of money for these guys. I recently heard that the Yankees didn't sign Ted Lilly because they could get Kei Igawa without having him count against the luxury tax. Kei Igawa is no Ted Lilly, he's no Tim Redding even. You can guess but you never know what you will get with these guys. Dice-k looked pretty solid the first two years, but now the Red Sox can't be sure if he'll ever pitch again this year. Kawakami was supposed to be a safe bet for the Braves and although he hasn't been bad (4.42 ERA/4.27 FIP) they still owe $23m to a 34 year old.

So definitely a good question, and there are tons of sufficient answers. If it's an overall question I would have to say Arod's contract no doubt. He is owed more than double the next worst contract and he's clearly not 100% healthy. He'll have more surgery this offseason on his hip, and the thought of having to pay over $200m for a 34 year old coming off major hip surgery must kill Cashman. It's almost as bad as having to watch and pay an admitted steroid user bonuses for climbing up the home run chart. Oh wait, Cashman has to do that too, great! However, the Yankees being the Yankees can still afford that contract, so if you are judging which contract to void on a team by team basis it has to be a tie between the Cubs for Soriano, Giants for Zito, and Blue Jays for Wells. What say you?

Joe Torre: Still Winning, Still Ruining Arms

The Dodgers are 46-24 with an 8 game lead in the NL West. It's not like they are trying to hold off a struggling team due to play better either as nobody would confuse the Giants or Rockies as great teams, let alone good teams. It's safe to say the Dodgers are going to make the playoffs, like ~98% chance. This is something Joe Torre is used to, making the playoffs. Since he coached the Yankees in 1996 he hasn't missed the playoffs. Another thing Torre is used to is relying on only a select few relievers and overusing them. This has made some noise recently as there has been enough season so far to judge relief usage, Buster Olney pointed out some interesting numbers:

Jonathan Broxton
Games: 30 | 71 | 83
Innings: 33 | 79 | 82
Work on consecutive days: 10.

Ramon Troncoso
Games: 30 | 71 | 55 (minors and majors combined)
Innings: 43 | 102 | 68.1 (minors and majors combined)
Work on consecutive days: 7

Ronald Belisario
Games: 35 | 83 | 38 (minor leagues)
Innings: 40.1 | 95 | 59 (minor leagues)
Work on consecutive days: 11

Those 3 numbers are the player's current totals, their on-pace totals, and their career high. As you can see the top 3 relievers this year in Joe Torre's bullpen are all going to pitch more innings and games than they ever have. And most notably are the two setup men, Ronald Belisario and Ramon Troncoso. Although there is no evidence to suggest that the Verducci Rule means anything, his 30 inning increase is a cause for alarm for starting pitchers. A 30 inning increase for a reliever makes what Torre is doing sound even more ridiculous.

It's been well documented that Torre destroys setup men Olney mentions Steve Karsay, Paul Quantrill, Tom Gordon, Tanyon Sturtze, Scott Proctor as prime examples. Last year Hong-Chih Kuo threw 80 innings with a 2.14 ERA, this year he's hurt. Last year Corey Wade threw 71 innings with a 2.27 ERA, this year he's thrown 25 with a 4.68. I realize relievers are very volatile and with so few innings their ERAs could be fluky one way or another (Wade's FIP this year is in line with last year for instance), but Joe Torre has not earned the benefit of the doubt. In the playoffs when Chad Billingsly goes 7 strong innings and Torre hands the ball off to Belasario in the 8th, there may be nothing left in his tank if he keeps this pace (hello Tom Gordon and Paul Quantrill). Likewise, next year if the Dodgers bullpen looks great on paper, don't be surprised if Belasario and Troncoso struggle feeling the effects of overuse the year after (hello Proctor, Sturtze, and Karsay). The frustrating thing is Torre doesn't need to do this. It's somewhat understandable to do it in New York when every game is analyzed. It's understandable when you are trying to win a division, but with an 8 game lead Torre is likely hurting his chances of winning the division by giving these guys the ball every game.

As long as Torre is managing he'll likely keep winning games and in addition to that keep adding names to his list of ruined arms. It's already a pretty long list, I won't be surprised to see Wade, Kuo, Belisario, Troncoso on it soon, if they aren't already.

Here's a Little Ditty About Replay

Last night in Detroit there were two home run calls that went to replay. Both overruled the original call, and both got the call right in the end. The more replay proves to be successful with home run calls (as it has been), the more pressure there will be to expand replay to plays at home, a called third strike or what have you.

Replay was added late last season strictly for home run calls because in a matter of a couple of weeks there were several blown home run calls. It's only a matter of time until there is a playoff series that has 2 plays at the plate called wrong. If that's the case, how could MLB reason that there shouldn't be replay on calls at the plate? So far they've has done a nice job on strictly keeping replay to home run calls, but in the end people are going to want the call to be right. Baseball is a game deep in tradition and umpires are tightly woven into that. Broadening replay by no means getting rid of umpires, but it'd be very hard to reason not expanding replay if calls are called wrong on plays other than home runs.

It could be next offseason, in 5 years or in 10 years but at some point replay is going to be expanded. I just hope it's not my team that gets called out at the plate in the World Series when he really was safe, causing MLB to make a change.

What say all of you. Expand replay to more than just home run calls, yay or nay?

Boras Being Boras

Magglio Ordonez is batting .273/.347/.343 with a cool 82 OPS+. That's pretty shitty. Like really really shitty. Like should be benched shitty, and that's what the Tigers have done. OPS isn't the greatest stat as Harold Reynolds told us so eloquently, but bear with me here, Maggs ranks 163rd in the league there, Luis Castillo has him beat. That's not to say that the Tigers have a wealth of other OF options (Josh Anderson- .288 wOBA, Clete Thomas- .323 wOBA and in the minors now, Marcus Thames can't hit righties, and Carlos Guillen can't get on the field) but it doesn't mean that Magglio should play everyday or even any day. This would all seem moot since Maggs can just cash his check on the bench except if he reaches a certain number of plate appearances an extension for 2010 and 2011 kicks in for $33m total.

That's where Scott Boras comes in:

Scott Boras, the agent for benched outfielder Magglio Ordonez, unloaded on the Tigers Friday, accusing them of a "myopic" decision to remove a former batting champion from the lineup "for no compelling reason."

Boras indirectly made his legal case for challenging any decision by the Tigers to release Ordonez and escape responsibility for his 2010 and 2011 options, which would pay him $33 million spanning those seasons if certain numbers of plate appearances are reached.

"Remember who you're calling, because I do my homework," said Boras, who is based in Newport Beach, Calif., and who is acknowledged as the sports agent world's resident Goliath.

"You want to know how many RBIs Magglio had at this time last year with 216 at-bats and runners in scoring position?

"Twenty-six RBIs. You know how many he has this year? Twenty-two. We're four RBIs short and we're benching Magglio?" Boras asked, incredulously.

"Benching him because he's hit .301 in the last 30 days? You're gonna take a guy batting .275 (.273), who over the last 40 days is hitting .300 with runners in scoring position, and bench him?

"I admit to you that Magglio had a rough April (.240 batting average). But if you want to talk about why his production is down in 2009 it's about one thing and one thing only: His home runs are down by seven. I submit to you that's not compelling information for declaring failure."

I wonder how often Scott Boras has contradicted himself. He's using RBI as a means to showcase Magglio here, but what card did he play when negotiating with the Red Sox for Jason Varitek last year? Certainly not RBIs as he had only 43 RBI. I wonder when he deals with teams that have several of his clients if he told them one day "you shouldn't knock my client because of his lack of RBIs, we both know that's an overrated stat" and then the next day "listen

According to Boras the only thing that is down this year is home runs. That would have merit if we were talking about David Wright, who even though his homers are down he is being just as productive if not more so(.397 wOBA in 2008 and .415 this year). So there are ways to be just as productive with a loss of homers, its just that's not what Magglio is doing. Some would say the only thing that Magglio is doing the same is RBI, which as we all know shouldn't affect how we judge players production necessarily.

However, with that said I'm not really that anti-Boras. Boras can pick and choose whichever stats he wants that best showcase his player, that's simply Boras doing his job. Say what you will about Boras, he doesn't break the rules he takes advantage of them for his player. Plus, you'd have to be a pretty crappy agent to not try to argue what he is with Magglio because there might be a case to be made. I'm not saying it's a strong case, but Magglio could certainly still be used to hit lefties and he's been a very good hitter as recently as last year. All of this still doesn't mean you can't find some of the things Boras says as hilarious, because how easy it is to see through it.

Best case scenario for the Tigers they save themselves $18m, worst case scenario is the extension kicks in, or Boras files against the Tigers and they pay something less than the $18m. Right now Magglio isn't good enough to play, and the Tigers can justify that decision, and since they can stand to save $18m there's no reason to start him right now.

How To: Keep Pitch Counts Down

Pitch to contact of course, right? Wrong. Courtesy of the folks (Dan Novick in particular) at Statistically Speaking, pitching to contact does not keep a pitch count lower:

Thanks to the work of Tom Tango, it has been shown that the average strikeout requires 4.8 pitches, the average walk takes 5.5 pitches, and if the plate appearance results in batter contact then it takes an average of 3.3 pitches [...]

Here's an extreme example: Take the exact pitching line from above, but change strikeouts from 6 to 27. So the new pitching line is 9 IP, 27 strikeouts, 4 BB, 1 HR. Using the formula above, the pitcher would be expected to throw 154.9 pitches. The effect is actually smaller than that, and here's why: If a pitcher strikes out 27 batters, would you really expect the ONLY guy to make contact to hit the ball over the fence? When a pitcher is that dominating, what are the chances that he'd give up a home run at a rate of one per 9 innings? I'd say very slim. Fewer balls in play means fewer fly balls, which in turn means fewer home runs, and fewer pitches. So the real pitch count would be lower than 154.9, but for simplicity's sake I'm going to call it even.

Let's look at the other extreme--a pitcher who doesn't strike out a single batter all game. Such a pitcher would be expected to allow a little over 12 hits per game. His expected pitch count for a game that included 4 walks, no strikeouts, and 12 hits including one home run would be 151.2 pitches. The caveat above about home runs also applies here, but in the opposite direction--a pitcher who has ever batter put the ball in play on him would likely allow more than one home run per 9 innings, so he'd likely throw slightly more than 151.2 pitches.

So what did we learn from this exercise? Even in the most extreme cases, striking out lots of batters will not increase your pitch count by any noticeable effect. Even when comparing two pitchers with polar opposite strikeout tendencies, the difference comes out to fewer than four pitches per 9 innings, with the real-life effect likely being even smaller than that due to the home run issue mentioned above. Next time you hear someone saying that a pitcher needs to "pitch to contact" in order to decrease his pitch count, you'll know that it makes no difference.

It seems like such common sense that striking out hitters causes more pitches but rather than fight it and say there is no way, color me convinced. There are several baseball adages that people are seemingly afraid sabermetrics will ruin, people remain eternally unconvinced of the science behind the numbers (even if they are pretty darn simple you still get outcries as startling as this). Funny thing is that often the math backs up what we all previously thought, this however is not one of those things.

A guy like Clayton Kershaw has a ton of talent including one that helps him strike out a lot of guys. Alas, he throws too many pitches to go deep into games. Surprise surprise! People think he should pitch more to contact, obviously now we can say that is a stupid idea. Kershaw just needs to pitch...well, better. There is a difference between striking guys out, and simply not having any control. Pitching to contact won't help that problem, it will just create a lot of RBI singles driving in the 2 guys you walked to start the inning.

On a personal note I found this article quite funny because of my 'Road to the Show' in the MLB the Show video game. I created a pitcher, Matt Vegas, and when I'm pitching I sometimes try to pitch to contact so I can get into the 7th and 8th innings (your stamina doesn't start off that high), and when I do that I often just give up more singles and doubles and get taken out earlier. Talk about a realistic video game! Expect Matt Vegas' strikeout rates to now increase in the future with no ill effects to his stamina.

Joe Mauer is Good

Not that anyone didn't know this already, save a few BBWAA voters in 2006 and 2008, but Dave Cameron helps tell us about Mauer's greatness:

Now, to rack up a +3.8 win value through mid-June is impressive enough on its own. Our fair value salary estimate suggests that Mauer has already played well enough to justify a $17 million contract for 2009, and we’re still a few weeks away from the all-star game. Even more amazing, of course, is that Mauer missed the first few month of the season with a back injury that landed him on the DL. Mauer has racked up his 3.8 WAR in just 43 games, totaling 190 plate appearances.

If we prorated Mauer’s performance out over a full catcher season, plus giving him some time at DH, we’d be looking at a +12 WAR season. The only guy to put up 12+ WAR in a single season since ‘02 (as far as our numbers go back) is Barry Bonds, and we’ll just say that there’s a wee bit of controversy surrounding that guy.

So, there’s no doubt, Mauer’s having an incredible season. Playing a +12 win level, even for just a few months, is pretty remarkable. But, here’s the thing - our version of WAR probably underrates Mauer, because we don’t try to quantify the defensive value of each catcher. Because of the problems in evaluating catcher defense, for right now, we just assume they’re all average for the purposes of calculating win values. Of course, they aren’t all average - some are demonstrably better than others.

Mauer has been far and away the best player in the major leagues this year despite missing time with an injury, despite having to come back healthy from that injury, and despite a metric that doesn't fully appreciate Mauer's position (not that there is any metric that fairly judges catchers). Wow.

Mauer has long been one of the best players in the league, but this year he has been the best, and there really isn't any argument. It's obviously not wise to prorate his peformance so far over an entire season and expect those to be the end numbers, but it helps illustrate how amazing he has been. You can make the case (and probably be right) that Barry Bonds has had one of the best seasons of all time, and right now Mauer is matching it.

Mauer obviously won't continue to put up this performance, but let's hope he doesn't need to in order to win his long awaited first MVP. If you look at ZiPS projections for him for the rest of the season, he'll end at .365/.446/.595 with a .447 wOBA. Considering that only Albert Pujols had a better wOBA than that last year and that Mauer plays the catcher position, it's safe to say you are looking at the prohibitive favorite for the MVP award. I didn't think I had a preference in the AL Central, but if it takes the Twins winning it in order to give Mauer the MVP I think that's what I'll be rooting for.

One thing to note is that Mauer's teammate Justin Morneau is having an excellent season, 3rd in the AL in the almighty RBI category. He already stole won MVP from Mauer in 2006, and inexcusably finished 2nd last year, can he do it again? It wouldn't surprise me. It also wouldn't surprise me if Evan Longoria or Mark Teixeira rode their gaudy RBI totals and likely better team records to an MVP this year. Not that they aren't worthy of MVP consideration, and not that they won't actually be more valuable than Mauer at seasons end, but at this rate if Mauer doesn't own some hardware this offseason it will be a real shame.

If this season holds true and a few things went Mauer's way in the past, he could have been the owner 3 MVP awards at only 26 years old before theoretically entering his prime, totally on his way to a shoein Hall of Fame career. However, it's not unlikely that he'll have 0 MVPs at 26, move off to a different position in his 30s (undermining his catching performance previously), and have it held against him at the end of his career when considering his Hall of Fame candidacy that he didn't win an MVP.

Emilioooooooooooooooooooooo

It's pretty funny how bad Emilio Bonifacio is. He's 100% not a regular in baseball, and it's likely even debatable how useful he'd be on the bench. His triple slash line is .249/.295/.302, his OPS is .597, his OPS+ is 60. What's even more amazing is if you take out his first 5 games his line reads as .216/.265/.249, a 514 OPS. I don't have to check to see if that's the worst line in the majors in the since April 12th, it has to be. Maybe 265 ABs isn't enough ABs to judge his talents but 457 career ABs with a 61 OPS+ would have to be.

The Marlins got Bonifacio and some prospects from the Nats to shed the salaries of Scott Olsen and Josh Willingham. That's not a bad trade for a team like the Marlins (or anyone really those are 2 relatively expensive below average players) but that doesn't mean they have to keep playing him, everyday. When people talk about replacement level it means how does a player compare to someone you bring up from AAA. In Bonifacio's case replacement level could be had in short season A ball. If Bonifacio was a slick fielding SS you could live with him playing a few times a week, but when he's a bad glove no hit 3b, I don't see what he brings to the table.

In the 26th round and 788th pick of this years amateur draft the Marlins drafted 3b Brent Weaver out of Oklahoma City University, I wouldn't doubt that if he were called up tomorrow he'd be better than Emilio Bonifacio, in fact I'd bet on it.

Sterling at it Again

I should really stop listening to the Yankee broadcasts, this is getting ridiculous...

Once again, on my drive home yesterday from the train I turned on the Yankees game on the radio. I missed the top half of the inning, but I got the wonderful opportunity to hear Sterling talk about Martis as he warmed up for the start of the bottom of the 1st. Sterling said Martis isn't having a bad year, he then ran off Martis' numbahs: 5-1 with a 5.04 ERA, 29 walks, and 28 strikeouts. He even talked about Martis' bb/9 ratio guesstimating it at 3.5/9, it's more like 3.7 but 3.50 is still bad, although not bad quick arithmetic by Sterling . Then after stating his stats, he repeated his statement that Martis' numbahs aren't bad. He has an ERA north of 5 and the worst K/BB in the entire major leagues, how are his numahs not bad?

Ahh he has 5 wins, on a 16 win team no less! Of all the pitching stats there are wins is the most out of a pitchers control, especially when you are looking at wins for only one year, and even more especially when you are looking at only 12 starts. I'd give Sterling a break if he just talked about his 5-1 record on the worst team in baseball, but when you show us the stats and continue to say the numbahs aren't bad you just start sounding stupid. In general it's one thing to not know the stats and judge based on the little knowledge you have. It's a completely different thing to know the stats and misinterpret them, or not even interpret them at all.

Listen, Shairon Martis should not be pitching in the major leagues. He's only 22 and if he were on any other team than the Nats he'd be in AAA maybe AA. I don't mean to say that Martis is a bad pitcher, I wouldn't doubt that he could become an effective pitcher, but to state his horrible numbahs and then proceed to say how they aren't bad is just ludicrous. Sterling probably feels bad for the guy that he has to learn on the major league level (and on a certain level I do too), but don't say how a guy with more walks than strikeouts and an ERA of 5.04 has good numbahs. That's insulting to your listeners, although I suppose it would be insulting for me to call myself a listener.

Sosa, No Way!!!

The New York Times is reporting that Sammy Sosa tested positive in 2003. Wow. I am totally shocked! I figured Manny was probably juicing, and that Arod couldn't be that good, but Sosa? What's next, Jason Tyner used steroids?

This is getting ridiculous. Apparently there is this big list of positive tests from the 2003 season, and the MLB or whoever it may be decides to release a name here and a name there whenever they desire. When the Arod stuff came out at first I wanted all the names to come out, then I thought about it and figured that's not right because well the players only agreed to it because it would be anonymous. But if the list isn't going to remain secret what's the point of not releasing all the names, all at once?

There is one problem with the list ever coming out though. That is I fear people may think players who are not on the list are 100% clean. Say you are a Red Sox fan and with Ortiz struggling this year (although maybe he's starting to right the ship) you are worried it's because he's off the juice. Then the list of 104 names come out from 2003 and Ortiz is not on the list. Should you now feel relieved that only Manny tainted the Red Sox titles? Forgive my bias for a second, and I don't mean to sit here and tell you Ortiz used steroids (quite frankly I'm not really convinced he did, it's not totally uncommon for a player like Ortiz to decline fast and you can't just throw luck out of the equation either, maybe he really is turning it around now), but just because you didn't fail one test in 2003, doesn't make you clean.

It wouldn't surprise me to find out that after releasing the names there are more questions than there are answers, but it's not right to leak these names one by one. If this is becomes a trend they all need to be released. It does make you wonder though how the hell does Selena Roberts and a couple of lawyers leak these things, but all George Mitchell could find was a couple of batboys. A big thing from the Mitchell Report however was that players stopped using detectable steroids and started using undetectable steroids. I have yet to see a reason why that wouldn't still be true today. People will undoubtedly think that the testing now assures everything is A ok but unless baseball wants to have blood testing saving all the records to retest once the undetectable stuff becomes detectable in the future, there will always be a cloud over the sport. On the other hand, the NFL has thrived, so maybe if baseball waits long enough people will just stop caring.

El Duque!!!!!

The Rangers have signed Orlando Hernandez to a minor league deal. The Rangers must think they are making the playoffs if they are trying out El Duque, because that's the only place where you can reasonably expect him to excel. Seriously, he's 9-3 with a 2.55 ERA in the post season. Even in 2005 for the White Sox he had that inning against the Red Sox in the ALDS getting out of bases loaded no outs unscathed. I think El Duque can roll out of bed at 43? years old and throw a great inning of relief in the playoffs adrenaline and all. But asking him to help out your pitching staff during the regular season may be a bit much.

Well for a minor league deal you have nothing to lose, but you should have no expectations as well. He's 43 (wikipedia says there have been reports he could be as old as 50, wow), and he hasn't pitched since 2007, the main reason behind that due to various injuries. It's debatable if El Duque still even has a toe anymore after having surgery on it in 2008 causing him to miss the entire year. I'm not sure how much stock you would put into his numbers from 2007 (if any) but he was pretty darn good on the Mets, 9-5 with a 3.72 ERA/115ERA+ in 147.2 innings. Expecting a performance near that would be utterly stupuid, but if El Duque can give the Rangers anything it would be a plus. Just seeing that leg kick one more time would a plus, and seeing the eephus pitch wouldn't hurt either.

I wouldn't doubt El Duque never even making the Rangers this year or the majors ever again, but count me in as rooting for the guy.

Starter Today, Closer ToMorrow?

Brandon Morrow who decided this year that he wanted to be a closer has now changed his mind and wants to be a starter again.

It's not often that I'm able to pat myself on the back with this blog, so when given the bait I gotta bite:

Brandon Morrow took it upon himself to be a closer this year, not a starter. If he really wants to keep the job he chose for himself, I advise him to be better at it. Miguel Batista only needs 2 months of the closer job to possibly look good enough to trade his contract. Morrow has never been consistent, I don't see him keeping the job all year long, and I definitely won't be surprised if he's starting games again.

That's what I said on April 8th after Morrow had been pitching poorly as the Mariners closer. Booyah! What a call right? Well not really, it was stupid to have Morrow decide what he wants, not the Mariners and it's even more stupid now that Morrow has changed his mind (again). I've said it before but it's my opinion that if given a choice between starting and relieving, you should always start, but if you are going this back and forth business it has to be better to just stick to one, even if that choice is to relieve.

With that said, it's nice to see that Morrow will be starting but I fear this isn't the end of the Morrow saga. I would love to see Morrow just rip it now as a starter, but he's been very injury prone and the likelihood of him shaking that reputation and starting a full year seems unrealistic. When he has a tired arm in September, and it's still lingering next spring, I won't be surprised if the Mariners decide you know what, the bullpen is better for your arm. There is one thing you can count on though, if I call this one (again) I'll be sure to brag about it.

Not the Right Man(ny Acta) for the Job?

Sorry for the crappy title but when I heard whispers that Manny Acta was on the chopping block I thought of a great headline, "The Last Acta", that is until Yahoo stole the idea from my brain. The one you see now is the next best. I was more interested on a dumb headline like that than actually writing about the Nationals, so although I don't have much to say I'll try:

The Nationals suck. Like they really suck. John Lannan is their best starter. Christian Guzman is one of their bright spots. Julian Tavarez has been their best reliever. Who's to blame for this? Jim Bowden. Who's not to blame for this? Manny Acta. I understand teams wanting to change things up, but with the product that the Nationals put on the field what can they realistically expect with a change of manager? Acta wasn't Stan Kasten's choice so maybe he wants his own guy in the dugout running things, but too often GMs replace managres to cover up their own mistakes.

The Rockies fired Clint Hurdle this season and they have done very well since Jim Tracy took over. But Jim Tracy also did terrible on the Pirates (as most people do), and as recently as 2007 Clint Hurdle did well on the Rockies. Dan O'Dowd has been the GM of the Rockies since 1999, and in that time they've had two winning seasons, the previously mentioned World Series run in 2007 and 82 wins in 2000. Three different coaches and really only one good season, all under the same GMs watch. When Jim Leyland loses in Colorado, Buddy Bell loses in Colorado, and Clint Hurdle loses in Colorado, I think it's O'Dowd who is the problem, not the manager.

So the Nats can fire Acta if they want, but I don't see how he's the problem. The Mets loved him as an assistant and he even earned some votes for manager of the year in his first season with the Nationals. If Bobby V isn't already managing the Mets next year (after Manual gets fired), if the Nationals let Acta go, you can count on him being their top choice.

Price, Hanson, or Strasburg?

A great discussion over at MLBTradeRumors, over which young pitcher would you take.

The question is which young pitcher would you take, but name-dropped are David Price, Tommy Hanson, and Stephen Strasburg. Between those 3 I would rank them as follows:

1. Stephen Strasburg. I want to buy the hype. There is no question he has the best stuff of those 3, and it's not like the others are very experienced themselves. I'll probably regret ranking him here and this is likely more me wishing he's this good than really thinking logically, but whatever.
   
2. David Price. He's the oldest at 23 but he's a lefty, hard to argue there.
3. Tommy Hanson. Based only on minor league performance you'd probably rank him higher, but consider me influenced by Price's performance in the pen last year and his 11 k game this year.

Luckily for baseball, those aren't the only 3 young pitchers worhty in the discussion. Rick Porcello is doing quite good for a 20 year old, Clay Buchholz has mastered the mionrs at every stop and is still only 24. Clayton Kershaw is younger than Price and Hanson and has more experience and success in the majors than them as well. And also let's not forget guys in the minors like Neftali Perez and Madison Bumgardner.

300 Game Winners

I didn't talk about this yet today because I figured I have already written about it here. Alas, I have nothing better to do.

First off congratulations to Randy Johnson, 300 wins is quite an accomplishment. Randy Johnson's career has and will continue to be overshadowed by Clemens, Maddux, and Pedro, even though career wise he's significantly better than Pedro (91.8 WAR compared to 75.2). Randy Johnson is actually closer to Maddux and Clemens than he is to Pedro.

From BaseballProjection.com career WAR list from 1953-2008:

Rank	Pitcher	Wins Above Replacement
1	Clemens, Roger	128.3
2	Seaver, Tom	105.4
3	Niekro, Phil	96.8
4	Maddux, Greg	96.7
5	Perry, Gaylord	96.3
6	Johnson, Randy	91.8
7	Blyleven, Bert	90.3
8	Gibson, Bob	85.5
9	Ryan, Nolan	84.8
10	Carlton, Steve	84.4
11	Jenkins, Fergie	81.4
12	Martinez, Pedro	75.2
13	Mussina, Mike	74.8
14	Sutton, Don	70.8
15	Schilling, Curt	69.8
16	Glavine, Tom	67.2
17	Reuschel, Rick	66.3
18	Drysdale, Don	65.6
19	Brown, Kevin	64.9
20	Smoltz, John	64.8

As you can see it's not even out of the question for Johnson to pass Maddux on this list being as he's still pitching and as recent as last year posted a 3.8 WAR. That's not to say Randy Johnson is definitevly better than Greg Maddux because he pitched until he was 45/46, but it means that Randy Johnson should be considered on par with Maddux and Clemens, rather than be left on the outside.

Back to 300 wins. For a long time now we've been hearing how Randy Johnson may be the last 300 game winner, and that is just preposterous. There have been 4 pitchers of the steroid, 5 man rotation, relief specialists era to win 300 games, I don't see why they will be the last. Granted they happen to be some of the most talented pitcher to ever stand on the mound (Clemens, Maddux, Johnson, Glavine), but they won't be the last.

One thing you will come across a lot now is seeing how current pitchers win totals stack up compared to the big 4, but comparing Roy Halladay's wins to Greg Maddux at the same age and conclude he's too far back is foolish. Similarly, comparing Roy Oswalt's to Randy Johnson and saying he is ahead of that pace is meaningless too. Nobody can predict how long a pitcher's career will be. When Randy Johnson was 30 years old, I don't think anyone was expecting him to pitch until he was 45 years old. You don't win 300 games by getting to 150 wins the quickest, you get there by staying effective in your 40s. So we can look at each of the suspects and say it's unlikely that they will pitch that long, but as a group you could at least expect one pitcher to, and in turn have a shot at 300.

In my last post about this I talked about the Hardball Times preview where they predict milestones such as 300 game winners. I'll repost their top 6 here for 300 wins:

• Andy Pettitte-14.4% predicts 250 wins
  
• C.C. Sabathia-10.3% predicts 195 wins
• Roy Halladay- 7.8% predicts 192 wins
  
• Brandon Webb -7.5% predicts 167 wins
• Roy Oswalt-7.5% predicts190 wins
• Chad Billingsly- 6.6% predicts 135 wins
  

That doesn't even include Johan Santana who's move to the NL and Metco could do wonders to his career or Mark Buehrle who just seems like he could pitch this way forever. The point here is while you may hear claims that Johnson will be the last 300 game winner there is even a projection system (that's admittedly pessimistic by its creator) that gives 2 current pitchers a greater than 10% chance to get 300 wins.

It's ok to say noone will break DiMaggio's 56 game hit streak, or that no pitcher will get more wins than Cy Young, but to say that nobody will get 300 wins after 24 players have is just stupid.

I Want To Say It Will Be The Last...

Time I post on whether Joba should start or relieve, but it likely won't be. This article sums it all up pretty brilliantly though:

In 180 innings as a starter, Chamberlain would be worth about 50 runs above replacement. In 80 innings as a reliever, he'd be worth about 35. Fifty is more than 35.

Of course you can introduce a fudge factor here: Innings pitched by a reliever of Chamberlain's caliber are generally more valuable than those pitched by a starter, sometimes twice as much or more so. Double the value of Chamberlain's relief innings, and suddenly he is actually more valuable as a set-up man. The counter to that, though, is that he would absolutely not run up a 1.53 ERA as a reliever going forward. Spectators blinded by the brilliant memory of this apparition appearing from nowhere two years ago to heave bowling balls and vanishing benders at clueless batters might not believe it, but it's true.

1.53 is preposterously good. For perspective, Rivera's career ERA is 2.25. Just for argument's sake, though, say that if you put Chamberlain in the bullpen tomorrow he would be every bit as good as Rivera has been in his career. In that case he'd be worth 25 or so runs above replacement per 80 innings of relief. Double the value of those innings and he comes out as no more or less valuable than he would as a starter. This assumes, again, that he would pitch as well as the most magnificent reliever anyone has ever seen.

The biggest point that I see why Joba should start is that a starter's innings total is more valuable than a reliever's. The biggest counter to that point is that relief innings are more valuable. When you are having an argument over this at a bar (or on Mike'd Up) it's hard to sufficiently back your claim beyond who can yell the loudest. But as you see here, when you it down and look at the numbers, even assuming Joba would be the best reliever in the game, and even assuming the 8th inning is twice as important, relieving still comes up short.

Sure the calculations may not be completely sound, but they don't need to be. The Yankees biggest problem now would be their bullpen, a problem that Joba would likely help instantly. However, taking him out of the rotation creates an even bigger weakness, the rotation. Need I say more?

How To: Get Tony Gwynn Out

Well that's an easy one, just throw it right down the middle of course!

“He said that Gwynn was so used to hitting pitches that were out of the strikezone that I was better off throwing it down the middle,” Tomko said. “He said Gwynn wouldn’t be expecting it, so he’d probably roll it over and hit it to the right side or pop it up.”

In Tomko’s first game against Gwynn on Aug. 7, 1997, Tomko threw fastballs over the plate. Gwynn grounded out to first and popped up twice to the infield.

Interesting strategy, and it didn't only work that one game, according the article Gwynn was 2/12 against Tomko in his career. Not enough of a sample size for sure, but it's still interesting. From 1993-1997 Gwynn's 33-37 aged seasons he hit .368, if that's what your facing then you could do a lot worse than just throwing it down the middle because at absolute worse Gwynn would hit a double.

If people did this to Gwynn I wonder if they have or should try it against Ichiro? More interesting perhaps is Gwynn's success in his late 30s, if Ichiro could do that for a little longer into his 40s (nobody would argue that he's in better shape to last longer than Gwynn) then2,500 hits becomes a certainty, and 3,000 isn't out of the question.

Finally a Trade Worth Talking About

The Pirates traded Nate McLouth to the Braves for OF Gorkys Hernandez, starter Jeff Locke, and starter Charlie Morton.

At first glance it seems like a bad trade for the Pirates, you'd expect them to get back a more can't miss prospect. Nate McLouth is a good player, but he's not really a great player. Last year in his breakout year, and the only real year where he was anything really, McLouth was worth 3.6 wins, which was 11th for CFs. And this year? He's 11th again. He's 27 and entering his prime on a cheap contract (3 years/$15.75m), but we shouldn't confuse Nate McLouth with Mark Teixeira.

So if the Pirates didn't get a 'can't miss' then what did they get? Eh not that much. Gorkys Hernandez was acquired by the Braves in their heist from the Tigers when they traded Edgar Renteria for Hernandez and Jair Jurjjens. BA ranked him 62nd this year, and as the Braves 4th best prospect. He's young (21) and fast (54 sbs in 2007). Lefty starter Jeff Locke was the 7th rated prospect on the Braves by BA. He's 21 and has talent, but you don't necessarily like to see a 21 year old struggle in high-A ball.

At first glance it didn't seem like a great trade for the Pirates, and after 2nd glance it still doesn't seem like a great trade, sorry Pirates fans. I really wanted to make it seem like a good move by the Pirates, but it's really hard to do that, I tried to above and it's not really believable. Like I said, McLouth isn't Mark Teixeira, but he's not Xavier Nady either (he's better, younger, cheaper, and signed for long), and they got a better prospect (Tabata) for Nady than they did for McLouth.

Great trade for the Braves though. They trade 2 guys that likely won't help the team until at the earliest 2010 and get an allstar signed for cheap until 2011. Their outfield has done terribly, you don't need stats to tell you that when you hear Garrett Anderson has been their best hitter out there.

The Pirates may have wanted to make space for Andrew McCutchen, but they could have just moved McLouth to right and brought up McCutchen without actually trading McLouth. The Pirates aren't going to be compeitive this year, next year, or maybe even the year after that. They would have plenty of time to wait to trade McLouth for the right deal. Maybe they feel this is the right deal, but I find that hard to believe as it would surprise nobody if both Hernandez and Locke don't amount to anything. Plus, couldn't something cool have been done with two MCs out there? The Pirates really missed the boat on that one.

UPDATE: I misread the rankings, and Gorkys is rated above Tabata, but my point remains the same. The Pirates got 3 young pitchers and a solid OF prospect for Xavier Nady (and Marte) who is far worse than McLouth, so you'd still expect a bigger return.

Gotta Love Suzyn Waldman...NOT

It's 7:33 as I write this, on the way home from the train station at around 7:22 listening to the Yankee game, and their amazing announcing duo. David Murphy was up and Suzyn Waldman correctly reminded the audience that he was one of the players acquired in the Eric Gagne deal. Nothing wrong with that, Yankee announcers subtley bashing a terrible Red Sox move, I can't complain. Then she said how Kason Gabbard was one of the other players in the trade, also fine. Sterling then asked who the third player was, and Walman admitted that she didn't know, again that's fine (it was Engel Beltre). But then she said how Gabbard was derailed by injuries last year and is in the Rangers AAA team, that's not fine. Gabbard did have injuries last year but he was acquired by the Red Sox this year. I don't mind if someone can't remember a third player in a trade from 2 years ago, but when you talk and you sound convincing and you're wrong? Then I mind.

I know this is nitpicking a bit, but I felt the need to get this out, file it in the overflowing why Suzyn Waldman sucks file and then forget about it.

Is Jackson the Yanks Best Prospect?

Yesterday I was mentioned Austin Jackson as the Yankees best prospect, but is he?

Because this guy is really starting to turn it on. A lot of prospects can look great early on, but a lot can happen from dominating single a to actually making the majors. That's why prospects closer to the majors usually are ranked a tad higher because they are more of a sure thing.

Baseball America: Jackson #1, Montero#2
River Ave. Blues: Jackson #1, Montero #2
Keith Law: Jackson #1, Montero #2

As you see there seems to be a consensus here, but I wonder if that will change, now that Montero has been called up to AA, provided he continues to play well there. As a 19 year old catcher in A so far this year Montero has hit .352/.404./.585, very impressive. His walk rate and k rate were pretty respectable too for such a young player at 7.4% and 14.8% respectively.

At AAA this year Jackson has hit .349/.425/.440. Zero homers leaves some to be desired but that is also impressive any way you slice it. Since Jackson is doing this at AAA I think you'd have to agree that he is still the Yankees #1 prospect, but Montero is sure making it a debate. The key here is the position. The Yankees are intent at keeping Montero behind the dish, but everyone else seems to be skeptical. Regardless Montero is going to hit, but if he's doing it at DH it's significantly less valuable than at Catcher. We've witnessed the hooplah with Matt Wieters and much of that has to do with his position. Montero is still 3.5 years younger than Wieters, and you never know what can happen in that time frame with any prospect, but if he keeps hitting like this and keeps playing catcher, he'll start climbing up the ranks, fast.

h/t baseballmusings