April in Review

With April in the books let's take a look at some interesting numbers that may or may not continue.

"April, Shh! If you bring up LaHair's BABIP it might regress!

.600 That's Bryan LaHair's BABIP this year. Bryan LaHair is an excellent story - a career minor leaguer who has taken his first chance at 29 years old to prove himself, and is running away with it. However, we might expect him to take a few steps back as a .600 BABIP just isn't sustainable. Does this mean LaHair's Cindarella story is doomed to be a Pumpkin once the clock strikes midnight, or in this case, May? Certainly not as he's hitting the ball very hard (25.7% line drives) and walking (in 14.3% of his PAs), but anyone taking bets that he'll continue to bat .390 should reconsider their gambling habit.

0 Home Runs. Will Albert Pujols finish the year with no homers? No. Will Albert Pujols have an off year? It's possible as his plate discipline has eroded over the last year and a half. The long-term issue at stake here isn't if Albert Pujols is going to half an off year but if this is who he is - a great hitter but not the top, top tier that he's been. When the Angels (or anyone) signs a veteran player like Albert Pujols, they aren't expecting sustained performance for the duration of the contract (unreasonable) but they are expecting peak performance during the beginning of the contract (reasonable). It's sort of like a tax to acquire top talent, you buy yourself a window to win the World Series, and pay for it later. I don't feel confident saying that a 32 year old Pujols in a new league and far away from his family is guaranteed to play like a 27-year old Pujols, but I do expect him to get on track.

100% LOB Lance Lynn is a good pitcher, but something tells me he won't strand every runner this season. His ERA isn't zero because he's given up a few homers, but none of those have come with men on base. 

.566 wOBA Matt Kemp might have already locked up the MVP (although Ryan Braun did some catching up last night) but I don't think he can do his Bondsian impression for an entire year and finish with a wOBA over .500. Matt Kemp has kept up his promise of letting "beast mode of its leash" thus far this season, completely dominating the league and although getting a 50-50 might be an unrealistic goal, I think we're looking at the best player in baseball right now and I don't see that changing this year. 

9 GB It's May 1st and the Angels are only 8-15 and 9 games back in the division. Part of that is Albert's fault, but even with his struggles the Angels shouldn't have the second lowest wOBA as a team in the league. They might have already played themselves out of the division title, as Texas looks very, very good and has too large of a lead even this early but one month shouldn't completely change how we looked at the Angels in March. I still expect them to hang around until the end, battling for one of two wild card spots.

.696 Dodgers Winning % Matt Kemp is very good. Clayton Kershaw is very good. Andre Ethier is pretty good. That's about all the Dodgers have right now. Yes, it's possible to make the playoffs (and do damage while there) with 3 stars and nothing else, but the Dodgers don't have enough stars. They do have a potentially great bullpen though if Mattingly realizes that Kenley Jansen is their best reliever and if Shawn Tolleson gets a chance this year. Take a look at his numbers in AA this year: 10 IP, 18 SO, 6 hits, 3 walks, 0.90 ERA. Add it all up and the Dodgers are a pretty good team, but not a team that can win 113 games and not necessarily a team we should expect to even win the division.

There are so many more little nuggets to uncover after the first month of the season but I'm going to arbitrarily stop here. If there are any important or interesting things that I didn't touch on or you would like to bring up please leave a comment - I'd love to see what you come up with!