Strikeout rates have climbed since 2006, while league wOBA has dropped.  Responses to ballooning strikeout rates have been mixed. One response is to trade one of your best hitters, while another is to lead the MLB in home runs. Some clubs are more averse to strikeouts than others.

It’s no secret that Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers hates strikeouts. Since taking over in 2010, Towers has discarded every Diamondbacks player who struck out 100 times or more from the 2010 club that set the major-league record for strikeouts in a season by striking out 24.7% of the time. His 2013 squad’s 18.5% strikeout rate is 10th-lowest in the majors. However, the decreased strikeout rate has not resulted in increased offense. The 2010 D-Backs scored 4.40 runs per game, posting a .325 wOBA and 93 wRC+, a shade better than that of the more contact-driven 2013 Diamondbacks who currently average 4.17 runs per game with a .313 wOBA and 92 wRC+. While the 2010 team had the 4th-best walk rate at 9.5%, the 2013 Diamondbacks are just 13th at 8.1%. Though the 2010 Diamondbacks struck out more, they also walked more, and made more quality contact, as shown by a .312 BABIP% and .166 ISO which were 2nd and 4th in the majors, respectively. The 2013 team has a .301 BABIP% and .135 ISO, good for 10th and 23rd in the majors. A look at the plate discipline numbers shows that the 2013 Diamondbacks swing at more pitches out of the strike zone and make more contact on those swings than the 2010 team.

If a hitter can cut his strikeout rate while maintaining his walk rate and power production, that is special. However, there is usually a tradeoff between power/walks and contact. After all, not everyone can be vintage Albert Pujols. To dig deeper into the balance between power and contact, I separated MLB hitters by strikeout percentage into five groups, with 30 hitters per group. I limited the study to qualified hitters, to eliminate the presence of pitchers and small sample size hitters. Not surprisingly, the first group was the clear leader in home run rate.

I included WAR even though it includes defensive and baserunning values because I thought that the contact-heavy hitters in group 5 might make up for their offensive deficiencies by being better defenders or baserunners. However, the total WAR for each group tracked offensive production for the most part. The first four groups are very close together with regards to wOBA. As I expected, the most strikeout-heavy group owned the highest walk and home run rates. Group 2 made up for its lower home run rate with a higher BABIP%. The rates of doubles were very close in all groups, ranging from 4.5% in group 5 to 5.2% in group 3. Group 5 had the lowest homerun and walk rates. Despite group 5’s ability to put the ball in play, the contact generated was of a lesser quality due to higher contact rates on pitches out of the zone. With the exception of Edwin Encarnacion, Adrian Beltre, and Buster Posey, none of the hitters in group 5 had more than 20 weighted runs above average (wRAA). The group average was 0.9 wRAA. Though group 5 had the lowest WAR of any group by a wide margin, they had the 3rd most plate appearances.

As the above table shows, there is not a significant negative connection between higher strikeout rates and offensive production. In fact, the most contact-heavy hitters are far less productive offensively than their more strikeout-prone counterparts. Of course, the plate approach of Chris Davis would not work for Marco Scutaro and vice versa. The idea of an ideal groundball rate for individual hitters has been posited. I would suggest that there is also an ideal strikeout rate for individual hitters. The following is a list of five hitters who I believe would benefit from a more or less contact-friendly approach.

Matt Holliday has trimmed his strikeout rate from 19.2% in 2012 to 14.4% this year. However, he has also trimmed his wRC+ from 141 to 137. His BABIP% is down from .337 to .312, but this is likely due to a less formidable batted ball profile, as his xBABIP% has dropped from .328 to .304. His Line Drive/Infield Fly ratio is down from 89/11 to 58/16. Furthermore, his home runs on contact has dropped from 5.7% to 4.8% and his overall homerun rate has dropped from 4.9% to 3.5%. His flyball distance has decreased from 305.15 to 294.66. A look at the PITCHf/x data shows that Holliday is swinging more and making more contact on those swings. His Swing% has jumped from 47.2 to 49.9 and his Contact% has gone from 78.5 to 81.8. His O-contact% has gone from 65.0 to 66.1 and his Z-contact from 86.1 to 89.0. While Holliday is striking out less while walking at the same rate, his swings have been noticeably less aggressive, and his overall offensive production is down.

Mike Moustakas has reduced his strikeouts even more than Matt Holliday, going from 20.2% in 2012 to 13.6% in 2012 while essentially maintaining his walk rate. However, his offensive production is down significantly, from 90 wRC+ to 79 wRC+. His home run rate has dropped from 3.3% to 2.6%, and his home runs on contact is a paltry 3.3% compared to 4.5% in 2012. His fly ball distance has dropped to 279.2 to 274.6. Moustakas’ increased contact rate has come largely from swings on balls outside of the zone, as he has seen as increase in O-Contact% from 63.7 to 74.3. During GM Dayton Moore’s tenure, the Royals have had an emphasis on putting the ball into play. Their 16.4 K% since 2007 is the lowest in the league over that time frame. However, they have only a 92 wRC+ over that span, good for 21st in the league and their BB% of 7.0 is dead last. While the Royals’ emphasis on contact appears to have helped Eric Hosmer, its application to Moustakas has had a negative impact on his production.

Adrian Gonzalez has undergone a significant change since being traded from the Padres. While playing in the spacious Petco Park Gonzalez posted home run rates between 3.8-5.9% and walk rates of 8.2-17.5%. His wRC+ numbers ranged from 123 to 156. His home run rate dipped to 3.8% in his first year at Fenway, his lowest since his first full season, but a still solid walk rate of 10.3% and a .380 BABIP% led him to an excellent 154 wRC+. Since then, his ability to draw walks and hit for power have plummeted. From 2012 to the present, Gonzalez has a 2.9 HR% and a 6.7 BB%. While Gonzalez has posted his three best contact rates since 2011, his O-Contact% has been between 70.1 and 75.9, well above his career rate of 67.1. Though Gonzalez has slightly improved his power production from 2012, his 126 wRC+ remains a far cry from his peak years. In Gonzalez’ best years, he had strikeout rates in the 17-20% range. He can still be a productive player, but the make-contact approach has taken away much of his power and walks.

Asdrubal Cabrera is posting career high strikeout and fly-ball rates in 2013. Unfortunately for him, this approach has not led to an increased power output, as his home runs on contact, average fly ball distance, and ISO are virtually unchanged from 2012. The 22.0% strikeout rate has conspired to cut his wRC+ from 113 to 91. In an effort to hit for more power, Cabrera’s contact rate has gone from 84.0% to 78.6%, a career-low figure, and his walk rate has dropped from 8.4% to 5.8%, also a career low. Though Cabrera’s BABIP%  has dropped from .303 to .286, his xBABIP% is up from .319 to .334, suggesting that he can be productive when he puts the ball in play. Not yet 28, it is time for the Indians shortstop to go back to the plate approach that made him a productive hitter in 2009-12, controlling the strike zone with a more level swing. In picture form, here is a swing from 2011 when Cabrera had a K% of 17.8 and a 119 wRC+.

 Yoenis Cespedes has improved his home runs on contact from 5.9% in 2012 to 6.4% in 2013. However, because of the jump in his strikeout rate from 18.9% to 23.9% his overall home-run rate remains at 4.3% and his ISO is basically the same. His wRC+ is only 96, compared to 136 in his debut season. Cespedes is hitting more fly balls at 47.7% compared to 39.9%, and their average distance is the same, but those fly balls have come at the expense of line drives and ground balls, which has caused his xBABIP% to sink from .305 to .279 and his actual BABIP% to go from .326 to .255. Because Cespedes is relatively new to the league, I wanted to see if pitchers are attacking him differently. However, Cespedes has been pitched to in largely the same fashion as 2012, but with slightly more fastballs and less changeups. Cespedes has been less able to hit those fastballs, as he is only 0.37 runs above average per 100 fastballs, compared to 1.71 last year. Cespedes has been seeing slightly more pitches out of the zone, as his Zone% has decreased from 46.2% to 45.1%, but his O-Zone Swing% is mostly the same. For the most part, Cespedes has been getting beat in the strike zone, as his Z-Contact% down from 84.2% to 81.0%. Because Cespedes’ raw power and athleticism are so impressive, there is a temptation to be overaggressive at the plate. He will likely always be an aggressive hitter, but if he can cut his strikeout rate to his 2012 level, it will be worth the decrease in home runs on contact.

Unlike many people, I do not think that strikeouts are inherently bad. For some hitters, the increased strikeouts are the cost of home runs and walks. Other hitters would be well served to put more balls in play while suffering a loss of power. However, start implementing a one-size fits all approach of strikeout avoidance and you’ll end up like the Royals.

Note: I have no idea if I’m the first to do this, but quite frankly I don’t care.

As you’ve probably grown sick of hearing¹, Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez is undeterred by his team’s general shittiness and is having a terrific season–his 5.7 WAR² is a very close third in the NL, and one of the players he’s behind may be out for a while. While he’s always been an excellent defender (50.8 career UZR prior to this season), his bat has never been particularly good (his career-best wRC+ prior to this season was 105, last year).

A massive improvement on offense has been the driving force behind his MVP-type numbers, as his wRC+ of 133 this year sits at 16th in the NL; this can be attributed to an increase in power (.235 ISO, compared to .150 for his career) and an uptick in BABIP (.350, compared to .311 for his career). Many of the articles listed in the first footnote cite these as reasons behind his improvement. One element of his game that has not improved, however, and is getting startlingly little coverage from the media, is his plate discipline; his walk and strikeout rates sit at 6% and 25.1%, respectively, meaning his BB/K of 0.24 is 6th-worst in the NL.

Now, should Gomez end up leading the league³ in WAR with that kind of plate discipline, how revolutionary would that be? I decided to find out. I looked up every NL WAR leader going back to 1910 (when strikeouts for batters⁴ were first recorded) and recorded their strikeouts and walks, then calculated each batter’s K/BB⁵ and ranked them from lowest to highest; the top 10 are listed below.

The average K/BB was 0.85, meaning Gomez’s⁶ is nearly 400% worse.

Now, any fan of baseball–sabermetrically inclined or otherwise–knows that this year (and in recent years), plate discipline has been at an all-time low. Knowing this, I decided to measure each player differently. I gathered up all the league-average K/BB’s for every year going back to 1910, then divided each WAR leader’s K/BB by the league-average K/BB for the respective year, and created K/BB-, in the style of ERA-. I then ranked each batter’s K/BB- from highest to lowest (i.e. worst to best); the top 10 are listed below.

The average K/BB- was 58, meaning Gomez’s was almost 200% worse.

The closest match to Gomez’s season (at least in terms of plate discipline) was Pete Reiser in 1941. That year, his K/BB was a very solid (by our standards) 1.54, but the league-average was below 1, meaning he was actually pretty bad by league-adjusted standards.⁷

Even when we adjust for the era, Gomez’s plate discipline is historically bad. People may argue about the value of plate discipline to a hitter, but you can’t dispute the facts: the average K/BB for a WAR leader is 42% better than league-average, and Gomez’s is 69% worse than league average, and yet he is contending for the WAR lead.

So, what does this mean? Obviously, as I mentioned in the introduction, a large part of Gomez’s value comes from his defense, and thus his offense is probably behind that of many others on this list. Gomez’s season has come out of nowhere, at least to some degree, meaning that it may be a fluke; for that to be determined, we’ll just have to wait and see. Though Brewers fan may be discouraged to hear it, history suggests it probably is.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

¹You know, from here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and here. Also, I’ve now started doing footnotes a la Grantland, although there isn’t any linking yet.

²All stats are as of Tuesday, August 13th, in case this takes some time to get published.

³I’m really getting sick of people using “the league” to refer to MLB as a whole; it’s misleading and it’s wrong. This isn’t the NFL–there are two leagues, not one. When you’re referring to MLB, say “the majors”, not “the league”.

⁴Strikeouts for pitchers go back all the way to 1876 (i.e. when all pitcher stats go back to). Why’d it take 34 years to record strikeouts for batters?

⁵I’ve always hated BB/K–it returns numbers that are much too minuscule. I prefer the larger form of K/BB.

⁶Is that correct, or should there be no “s”?

⁷Reiser’s success that year–166 wRC+–was mainly motivated by a .377 BABIP, 97 points higher than the MLB average that year, and by far the highest of his career.

I was watching the Twins game a few weeks ago when veteran Jamey Carroll effortlessly took an outside pitch to right field, as one might hope he would. The announcers were quick to praise his ability to “go with the pitch”. I’ve seen this play out time after time, often followed by praise for “going with the pitch” and “not trying to do too much”. That got me thinking, do some hitters go with the pitch better than others? Is this a desirable skill or does it leave the hitter vulnerable? Can a defense exploit this trait with a defensive shift much like we see shifts on straight pull hitters?

To dive into this I captured the angle of each hit ball since 2010 and displaced that against the angle that I expected the pitch to be hit. For example, an inside pitch on a right-handed batter could be expected to be hit near the left field line, while an outside pitch could be expected to be hit near the right field line. Everything in between would be evenly spread across the field, relative to the pitch’s location across the plate.

To make it a little more accurate for right-handed hitters vs left-handed hitters, I analyzed the actual pitch placement for pitches that become hit balls. As you can see below, all hitters prefer the ball just a touch on the outside part of the plate. I took two standard deviations of the hit pitches and considered that the spectrum that we’ll map to the field, with unique values for right or left handed hitters. We’ll call this our hit zone.

The players that made it to the top of the data below are the ones that tend to go with the pitch. That is, they take the outside pitch to the opposite field, they pull an inside pitch, and they take a pitch down the middle of the plate straight through center field. They are less random and more predictable.

With that, here are the most predictable hitters of 2013 through August 10th.

For comparison sake, here are the 10 least predictable hitters.

Let’s explain this data before we go any further.

First off, the field is 90 degrees and thus, the values are all in degrees.

• Average Absolute Angle Difference: If a pitch was on the inside of the plate on a right-handed hitter, and was determined it would be “properly” hit somewhere near the left field line, but was actually hit 20 degrees to the right of that expected spot, this number shows that difference, averaged across all hit balls.
• Mean Angle Difference: Some balls are pulled against their expected spot, others are not. Pulled balls show up as a positive angle (for both L or R hitters), while negative angles indicate the batter was behind the pitch. The Average Absolute Angle Difference does care either way, while this metric does. A higher positive value here indicates a pull tendency while a negative value indicates that a batter is more often than not behind the pitch. Those batters with a higher value from 0 indicate they could be a little more predictable to pull or push.
• Standard Deviation: This should give you an indicator as to what kind of angle you could expect ⅔ of a batter’s hit balls to be where you expect them to be. For example, Chris Stewart has a standard deviation of 21.97 degrees. Given a very outside pitch that you’d expect to be hit down the right field line, you can expect that Stewart will usually hit that ball down the line or at most 20 degrees to the left or foul.

Looking at the data back to 2010 I found these players continually near the top. It seems for them, they have always hit this way, and can be expected to continue to hit this way.

• Marco Scutaro
• Ryan Hanigan
• Jamey Carroll
• Denard Span
• Elvis Andrus

Now, what can we do with this knowledge? Can a defense use the left-handed shift on a right-handed hitter? To look at this we’ll look at spray charts, but with a very important distinction from a standard spray chart – we’ll limit the hit balls to those hit on pitches on the outside of the hit zone.

I’ll start you off with a spray chart for someone not on our list – Jose Bautista. This chart shows where he hits outside pitches. He looks like a good spray hitter when you look at only the outside pitches. As a defense, you wouldn’t shift on Bautista AND pitch him outside.

Let’s move on to someone who was continually at the top of our list, Marco Scutaro. You’ll see Scutaro reliably hits balls on the outer third of the hit zone to the right side. He still hits a fair number of ground balls across the infield, so an infield shift wouldn’t be advised. But liners and fly balls in the outfield are heavily weighted to the right. Using a control pitcher, pitching on the outside ⅓ of the hit zone, you could reliably shade the outfield to right field.

The same applies for Jamey Carroll, another player who, like Scutaro, shows up on our list year after year.

Takeaways
I’ve found that the tendency of pushing the ball on outside pitches to be much more predictable with our leaders than pulling the ball on an inside pitch. There’s surely more to be gleaned from this data, but the outfield shift on these predictable push hitters is definitely the most interesting.

Data Collection & Mining Techniques
The metrics for all hitters, year-by-year back to 2010 can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtERgAQ83pATdDItUzAxXzhMZm41cGFPRjgxOEdZa0E&usp=sharing

All of the data used in this post was loaded from MLB’s gameday servers into a MongoDB database using my atbat-mongodb project. This project is open source code that anybody can use, modify, contribute to, etc. Fork me please!
https://github.com/kruser/atbat-mongodb

The following programs were used to mine and plot the data from the mlbatbat MongoDB database.

• https://github.com/kruser/mlb-research/blob/master/src/main/python/HitBallPitchLocation.py
• https://github.com/kruser/mlb-research/blob/master/src/main/python/HitPredictabilityIndex.py
• https://github.com/kruser/mlb-research/blob/master/src/main/python/SprayCharts.py

The Red Sox employed outfielder J.D. Drew from 2007-2011 and signed his brother, Stephen, to a one-year contract prior to the 2013 campaign. The Drews are ballplayers who go about their business in similar ways — they’d prefer to avoid the limelight and just hit the baseball. It’s an admirable quality, but not one that’s so cooperative with the Boston media or fans. For some inexplicable reason, Boston is enamored with players whose highs are raucous and whose lows are dismal. This was never the case with J.D., and doesn’t appear to be the case with Stephen, but the numbers say that they’re some of the best Sox contributors in recent history.

The Background

J.D. and Stephen were high profile prospects in their respective draft classes and both went to Florida State University.* Prior to signing with the Sox, the two had established themselves in the National League. Both brothers, however, followed completely different paths to their contracts with the Boston Red Sox. In 2007, the Sox signed J.D. at the pinnacle of his career to a 5-year, $70 million contract. Stephen signed a low-risk, high-reward deal with the Sox for 1-year at $10 million prior to 2013. He’s the shortstop for now — Xander Bogaerts is the future. Boston fans can’t help but notice the similarities between the two brothers, which extends beyond the striking resemblance to one another and the shared uniform number (#7). Stephen plays the game much same way as J.D. did, with a smooth and dispassionate style that makes hitting and fielding a baseball seem as simple as driving a tractor (because this is all I like to imagine J.D. does now that he’s stepped away from the game). The two have nearly identical left-handed swings and are known around baseball to share one elite quality: their approach to an at-bat and their knowledge of the strike-zone.

Batter’s Eye

J.D. Drew was heralded as one of the most disciplined hitters in baseball when he signed with the Red Sox in 2007. This means he had an excellent understanding of the strike-zone and had the ability to take close pitches for balls to reach base. Less was known about Stephen when he arrived in Boston, as he was a lower-profile signing. But after his first 84 games, it’s clear that he possesses the same skill. The skill can be quantified by using a PITCHf/x statistic called O-Swing%. The stat measures the percentage of pitches a batter swings at outside the strike-zone. If you need more info on O-Swing%, FanGraphs has a good summary. But suffice it to say that the lower a hitter’s O-Swing%, the better handle he has on the strike-zone (there are a few exceptions; for example, Miguel Cabrera does not see very many pitches in the zone, but is still skilled enough to square up balls that are off the plate. He has one of the highest O-Swing% in the MLB). I’ve plotted BB% (a hitter’s rate of drawing walks) vs. O-Swing% for each hitter with at least 300 plate appearances this season and super-imposed J.D.’s numbers he racked up with the Sox (2007-2011):

We can make a couple of observations. First off, BB% clearly trends with O-Swing% — this makes sense: those who swing less often at pitches outside the zone are more likely to walk. Second, we see that Stephen possesses the same plate discipline as J.D., ranking around the 15th percentile in O-Swing%. In fact, both brothers’ BB% is slightly higher than we might expect based on the linear regression (i.e. the data points lie above the trend line). Finally, we notice that if J.D. played in 2013, he would lead the league in O-Swing%. That’s right: J.D. Drew would have the best eye in Major League Baseball if he strapped on the spikes and decided to have another go. Players who are more likely to walk (i.e. who have a high BB%) are more likely to have a higher OBP, one of the fundamental stats for determining a player’s value. It’s not difficult to see why the Drews got the big bucks from Boston.

Fans (including myself) were under the assumption that if you have a great eye, you strike out less. This is not such a ridiculous proposition: if you have an elite knowledge of the strike-zone, then surely you should utilize it with two strikes. But a simple plot of K% (the rate at which a hitter strikes out) vs. O-Swing% demonstrates otherwise:

A blob. The two statistics are not correlated in the slightest. To Sox fans, it seemed that J.D. Drew often took the third strike with the bat on his shoulder — the “Master of the Backwards K”. Since Sox fans knew he had a great eye, it seemed as though this happened at an alarming rate, as the expectation was that a lower O-Swing% should also lead to a lower K%. The two stats are not correlated and Drew did not strike out at an alarming rate at all — if he decided to step into the batter’s box in 2013 he’d be right around the league average in K%. Because J.D.’s eye was touted (for good reason) as one of the best in the league, many fans unfairly jumped to conclusions about how often he should strike out. Also, if we take a look at where Stephen lies in the data spread, we see that he strikes out at a much greater rate than his brother, but seems to take less heat from Red Sox Nation. This might be because Sox fans love players with a flair for the dramatic — something Stephen has shown he possesses whereas J.D. never did.

The “Anti-Clutch”

The biggest hit I remember from J.D. Drew was a grand slam in Game 6 of the 2007 ALCS, which turned the tide of the series. As for walk-offs, I remember one biggie: a line-drive over the head of the right-fielder in Game 5 of the 2008 ALCS against the Rays to cap a massive Sox comeback. Gordon Edes of ESPNBoston reminds us that there was, in fact, one more, but goes on to summarize J.D.’s reputation brilliantly: “Mr. Excitement, he was not.”

“The Anti-Clutch” was the nickname bestowed to J.D. Drew by my dad, who was often frustrated with his performance in tight spots. But my dad’s a stubborn guy and may have been swayed by one strikeout (he also championed the nickname “Master of the Backwards-K”). Certainly he hasn’t done a fair analysis of the relevant statistics, so I’ll do it here. CLUTCH is a complicated statistic that attempts to quantify a player’s performance in high-pressure situations. It utilizes WPA (win probability added) and LI (leverage index, a measure of just how “high pressure” the situation truly is) and normalizes the league-average player to zero. You can read more about CLUTCH here, but the number generally ranges from -1 to 1. Thus, a player with a positive CLUTCH can be considered just that (clutch) but a player with a negative CLUTCH often chokes in the tight spots. So how did J.D.’s numbers look during his time in Boston?

Yikes. That’s all there really is to say about that, except for it likely validates the opinion of Dr. D’Andrea. For reference, Stephen Drew’s CLUTCH is 0.64 during his first season in Boston, which checks in at well-above average. Nonetheless, J.D. Drew has had a tremendous, all-star career, similar to the likes of Eric Davis, Raul Mondesi, and Kirk Gibson.

Stephen’s Trend

Jose Iglesias started the season as the Red Sox shortstop when Drew missed much of spring training due to a concussion. When Drew returned, Iglesias was optioned to Pawtucket, but was recalled when Stephen missed time in July with a hamstring injury. Iglesias was traded to the Tigers in the deal that brought Jake Peavy to the Sox, clearing the way for Drew to re-assume the everyday job on the left side of second base. Drew’s season trend, especially as it pertains to his batting average, was likely a main reason why GM Ben Cherington felt comfortable giving up Iglesias, a defensive wizard:

While Drew’s not even half the fielder that Iglesias is, he has the potential to carry a team for weeks at a time with his bat. Fitting his season trend to a third-degree polynomial (this is not a “random” choice — he has clearly had two critical points over the course of the year), we can see that Drew is heating up as the season turns to August. In the best-case scenario (the one in which Drew continues or surpasses his current surge), he could be hitting .300 by September 1st. In a more realistic scenario, Drew will continue his current hot streak, and then regress to his career average of .264 by the time September rolls around. In any case, the remainder of the season is looking promising for the Red Sox shortstop, which is a good sign for a team that’s in desperate need of production from the position. In the wake of the Peavy deal, my favorite Globe writer Chad Finn had this to say about the brothers: “And yes, I’m kind of chuckling at the thought that the unfairly maligned Stephen Drew is still here while Iglesias has moved on. The Drews, they’re survivors, man.”

*J.D. Drew was drafted by the Phillies second overall in 1997, but failed to sign a contract. He and agent Scott Boras demanded $10 million whereas the Phils were only willing to offer $2.6 million. He played with an independent league team for one year, then was drafted fifth overall by the Cardinals in 1998, signing for $7 million. Phillies fans booed him for the entirety of his career.

Vince D’Andrea is a rising senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an avid Red Sox fan and his blog, Dave Roberts’ Dive, can be found here.

I think one of the most fun parts of baseball is this part of the year; as we wind down, you can start to root for unlikely things to happen. For example, I’m kind of hoping the Pirates manage to lose at an .800+ clip and keep their sub-.500 streak alive. I’d love to see the Royals make the playoffs. Finally, I’d love to see Yasiel Puig win the NL batting title.

The rules of the game are that you have to have 502 plate appearances to win a batting title. If you’re short, you’re given an 0-fer for the rest. So if Puig finished with 492 PAs, he’d take an 0-for-10 for the purposes of the batting title. Right now, Puig is projected by STEAMER to finish the year with 435 PAs. We’ll accept that number for now, but given that number, let’s think about how likely it is that he has a high enough batting average to win the title.

The first step is to figure out the mark he needs. Let’s go with STEAMER again, and we see Michael Cuddyer, Joey Votto, Yadier Molina, and Chris Johnson all projected to finish at about .320. Let’s assume that one of those four players finishes right at his 87.5% projection (the middle of the highest quartile)…I’ll say Joey Votto, who is projected to go .302 for the rest of the year (the highest of the bunch). Using the binomial distribution, there’s a 16.2% chance Votto finishes 51/149 or better given his “true” .302 batting average. We’ll say that that is the target Puig has to reach: Votto (or one of the others) adds something like 51/149 to his current stats, for a .329 batting average.

What are the chances Puig reaches that clip? To keep it simple, let’s assume STEAMER is right on the number of PAs, ABs, and Puig’s true chance of getting a hit, and then figure out Puig’s chance of getting enough hits to finish at .329 or better. He’s going to end the year with 435 PAs and 390 ABs, if he keeps up his current pace. To that, add an 0-for-67 to get him up to 502 PAs. So he needs enough hits to have a .329 batting average in 457 ABs. That number is 150. He currently has 85 hits in 224 ABs, so for the rest of the year he needs 65 hits in 166 ABs.

Given that STEAMER projects a .293 batting average for the rest of the year, it’s pretty unlikely that he’ll hit at a .392 clip. In fact, his chances of doing so are only about 0.4%, using the binomial model.

What could help his chances? First, there’s no guarantee Votto/Johnson/Molina will get hot enough to make the mark .329. If we drop the required average to .320, using the same method as above, he’d only need 146 hits, which raises his chance to about 2.3%.

Another possibility is that he’s a better hitter than STEAMER projects. If he only regresses to .310, which would make him one of the better hitters in the league admittedly, he has about a 1.6% chance of winning the batting title. And if he is truly a .310 hitter, AND none of the other players near the top of the leaderboard stay hot enough to beat .320, Puig has a whopping 6.6% chance of winning the batting title.

Yeah, I know batting average is stupid. And I know this is a minuscule chance. But isn’t it amazing that Puig has a chance to do something like this at all, after making his debut in June? Baseball!

Note: I have no idea if I’m the first to do this, but quite frankly I don’t care.

Today, it was reported that seven-year veteran and noted ump hater* Mark Reynolds was released by the Indians. As an Orioles fan who enjoyed watching Reynolds, this was disheartening for me–I’ve always liked TTO guys, and it’s hard to find a more TTO guy than Reynolds**. However, I was (and am) also a fan of the Orioles, meaning I would want them to win, preferably as often as possible. This means that starting a player with a career WAR of 7.4 (in nearly 4000 plate appearances , no less) probably isn’t the best way to accomplish that goal.

Now, about that WAR…

As of  Thursday, August 8th, 2013 (i.e. the day of his release), Reynolds is 322nd all-time in homers, and has nearly 200–for the record, there are 311 players with 200 dingers, as of the aforementioned date. Anyone who has watched Reynolds knows that he has formidable power, and his stats, at least for his career, reflect that–his .232 career ISO*** would rank 16th in the majors this year. However, that power comes at a price: namely, every other aspect of his game. Like, seriously. Plate discipline, baserunning, fielding, everything. The end result of this is the aforementioned WAR value, which translates to 1.2 WAR per 600 plate appearances; as a point of reference, these scrubs have WAR/600PA numbers of 1.9 and 1.8, respectively.

Now, the main point to get out of this is that Reynolds–a player with nearly 200 career long-balls, considered by the small-minded to be the symbol of all success–has a single-fucking-digit career WAR, when some players are able to get double-digits in a single season. This led me to the question: how many other players, of the 322 with 200 round-trippers, can fit this dubious distinction? This question led me to the answer: three. They are listed below in order of lowest to highest WAR, for your amusement, along with my best guess as to why this person was so shitty.

Jose Guillen–214 career bombs; 4.5 career WAR (.4 per 600 PAs)(!)

Guillen is  remembered for a few things:

1. Pulling a reverse Bedard (i.e. protesting when his manager removes him from the game) and being suspended for the Angels’ 2004 playoff trip; this actually happened during a decent season for him (3.0 WAR), so don’t be too sure he wouldn’t have helped them had he participated.

2. Holding that grudge with him**** for the rest of his career.

3. Being an all-around genial person.

3. His exceptional rookie year, which earned him comparisons to the immortal Neifi Perez, in addition to being, as of last June, the worst season for a right fielder ever.

4. Being, y’know, a generally horrible baseball player.

For all the talk recently of Jesus Montero being terrible despite PED usage, Guillen was pretty bad, and he juiced, too. In terms of career numbers, he had a triple-slash of .270/.321/.440, and a .330 wOBA; while he never really played in a hitter’s ballpark (he had brief stops in Cincinnati and Arizona), he still played in a hitter’s era, meaning his career wRC+ was only 98. His D, however, was what truly set him apart: -56.7 fRAA for his career, and it would’ve been even worse, if not for a ridiculously fluky 2005 (12.5 fRAA, by far the highest of his career). He also wasn’t a particularly good baserunner (-16.5 BsR).

He didn’t strike out nearly as much as Reynolds (17.2% career), but he also didn’t walk nearly as much (5% career), and his ISO was considerably lower (.169).

Dante Bichette–274 career four-baggers; 8.9 career WAR (.8 per 600 PAs)

The career of Bichette was best epitomized by his unfathomable 1999 season; I’ll provide a quick summary. Bichette had a triple-slash of .298/.354/.541 over 659 PAs, which translated to a .376 wOBA. A casual sabermetrician would look at that figure and say, “Well shoot, that’s pretty darn good!”, not knowing that it came while he played for Colorado, in 1999 (i.e. one of only three seasons in MLB history where teams averaged more than 5 runs a game). Thus, after adjusting for park and league effects, Bichette’s wRC+ for that season sat at a mere 100–he was an average hitter. For the sake of comparison, Josh Donaldson has a .372 wOBA for the Athletics this year–and a 139 wRC+. As Mr. Remington points out in the article*****, Bichette in 1999 was one of just two seasons where a hitter had a .370 wOBA or higher and a wRC+ of 100 or lower; the other season was Jeff Cirillo in 2000, playing for–you guessed it–the Rockies.

Focusing on Bichette’s career as a whole, he hit .299/.336/.499, for a .359 wOBA; however, because a lot of that was spent in Colorado, his career wRC+ was a mere 104; this, combined with poor defense (career -92 fRAA) and relatively poor baserunning (career -1.2 BsR), gave him the undesirable WAR seen above.

Bichette’s K% and BB% were somewhat similar to Guillen (15.7% and 5.2%, respectively), meaning they were considerably lower than Reynolds’ numbers; his ISO (.200) was considerably lower than Reynolds, though not as low as Guillen.

Deron Johnson–245 career circuit clouts, 9.7 career WAR (.9 per 600 PA’s)

The only old (i.e. pre-UZR) player who fit the criteria, Johnson was, allegedly, described by Pete Rose as the hardest ball-hitter he had ever seen. It’s too bad he struck out in nearly 20% of his plate appearances (high for the time period, when the average was about 15%).

Johnson only had one 4-win season (4.3 in 1965 for the Reds); in that year, he had a .370 wOBA, albeit with -9 fRAA. Fielding was his main problem (career -63 fRAA); his career triple-slash of .244/.311/.420 comes out to a .326 wOBA and a decent 102 wRC+, and his BsR was only -3.0. His K% and BB% (8.8% and 19.9%, respectively) were higher than the averages for his era, but not to the degree of Reynolds’, though his ISO (.176) was pretty high for the time.

He’s the least spectacular of the bunch, probably because he played back in the 60’s and, therefore, is completely insignificant.

So what was the point of this? To use as many variations of the word “home run” as possible?****** Possibly. To find the closest companions to a favorite player? Possibly. Was this whole thing completely, utterly pointless? Definitely.

————————————————————————————————–

*He actually made some good points in the rant. Here’s the quote that really resounded with me: “…It’s a shame [the umpires] don’t have accountability. They don’t have any, if they make a bad call, it’s like, ‘Ho-hum, next day is coming.’ If we have a bad couple of games we get benched or we get sent down. They have nobody breathing down their throats. They have nobody, they are just secure in their jobs.”

**To be fair, Reynolds acknowledges his approach may not always be the best.

***Reynolds’ and Jose Reyes‘ 2011 seasons are a perfect example of why SLG% is overrated. At the conclusion of the season in question, Reynolds’ SLG% was 10 points higher than Reynolds’ (.493 to .483), despite Reynolds having an ISO a HUNDRED AND SIX points higher (.262 to .156). Now, in the context of this season, was Reynolds a better overall hitter? Certainly not (in case you forgot, this was Reyes’ last year with the Mets, when he had a phenomenal year, leading the league in batting average, etc.). Was Reynolds a better power hitter? Certainly yes. Hmmmmm…not sure if “Certainly yes” is grammatically correct. Whatever.

****The quote from Guillen should really win an award for Worst Butchering of the English Language (particularly the first sentence).

*****In the article, Remington cites Bichette as having a 98 wRC+ in 1999, when on his player page, it lists him as having a 100 wRC+. Have the park or league factors changed since last year?

******I used homers, dingers, long-balls, round-trippers, bombs, four-baggers, and circuit clouts. Thanks to this post for supplying me.

Predictive analysis of baseball statistics is an art, and there are very few well-accepted rules and principles. Even still, common sense dictates that it’s ridiculous to read too much into one performance. So to compare Rubby de la Rosa to an MLB star based on 10 electric fastballs in the 9th inning of a 15-10 Houston shootout would be simply outlandish. But, hey, why not?

The Background

De La Rosa’s pitch speed was touted as his single best attribute when he arrived in Boston as part of the package traded from LA in the Gonzalez-Crawford-Beckett deal. He was coming off Tommy John surgery, but the list of pitchers to match or surpass their pre-surgery velocity upon their return is too long to post. Below is a sampling of stats from De La Rosa’s 2011 campaign (he missed a full season to surgery, except for one brief appearance in 2012:

Rubby (pronounced “Ruby,” as in red) was used primarly as a starter in his rookie season with Los Angeles, and drew comparisons to Pedro Martinez due to his height (5’11”) and also due to his sizzling fastball and wicked changeup. In fact, the Sox hired Pedro as a Special Assistant this spring to work specifically with De La Rosa, and Pedro raved about the 24-year old’s prospects. Clearly, Rubby has the “stuff” to be a top-end starter: the average velocity on his fastball was 95.4 MPH in 2011, which would rank third in the majors this year (behind Matt Harvey and Stephen Strasburg) amongst qualified starters. While De La Rosa has worked as a starter with Pawtucket in 2013, the organization has made it clear to manager John Farrell that he can use De La Rosa with the big-league club in whichever bullpen capacity is necessary to win.

The Performance

While there were many noteworthy aspects in Tuesday’s outing, Rubby impressed me most with the command he showed with his fastball while managing to maintain his velocity. De La Rosa threw all of his pitches — fastball, changeup and slider — and racked up strikeouts on his slider and fastball. His ability to get ahead in the count allowed him to vary the speed of his pitches over the course of his outing on nearly ever pitch:

The ability to stay in a pitcher’s count makes his pitch selection more unpredictable for the batter, allowing him to capitalize on the exceptionally low 63.9% contact percentage he generates when he throws his changeup. Also, his fastball was simply electric in his Sox debut: he managed 2 swinging strikes on the pitch that he threw, on average, at 98.17 MPH. If he managed to keep that velocity for the remainder of the year, he would vault directly to the top of the leaderboard for relievers’ average velocity, surpassing Cincinnati’s Ardolis Chapman and Kansas City’s Kelvin Herrera. De La Rosa also warmed in the pen on Sunday afternoon with the Red Sox leading 4-0, but Farrell deemed the situation too “high leverage” to bring him in. Finally, in front of a nearly empty stadium during a 15-10 slugfest, Rubby made the most of his first opportunity to pitch for the Sox.

The Comparison

Those who watched the 2002 Angels-Giants World Series remember an energetic young Venezuelan by the name of Francisco Rodriguez.

Much like Rubby De La Rosa, K-Rod burst onto the scene in the Angels bullpen late in the season; he made his major league debut on September 18th, 2002, which is more than five weeks later in the season than De La Rosa debuted for the Sox in 2013. In 2002, Rodriguez pitched in five games before the playoffs, striking out 13 batters while allowing exactly zero runs. He experienced even greater success for the Angels in the playoffs, where he struck out a whopping 28 batters over 11 games while posting a 1.93 ERA. In doing so, he cemented himself as one of the key pieces helping Anaheim to a World Series title. While PITCHf/x data is not available from 2002, K-Rod’s bread and butter consisted of his sizzling fastball coupled with a biting slider. It’s a slightly different arsenal than De La Rosa’s (Rubby’s might be even deeper due to his advanced changeup), but both were clearly gifted with elite power “stuff” as emerging young pitchers.

For those who are wary about how De La Rosa’s arsenal and approach will translate to a late-inning relief role from the starting niche he’s held all year in AAA, consider the following: K-Rod was a struggling starter for Angels single-A affiliate Rancho Cucamonga in 2001 (the year before his debut), posting a 5.38 ERA and an 11.6 K/9 (while his major league rate over his first three years was 14.59 K/9). In a similar career trajectory to K-Rod, Rubby De La Rosa has yet to truly embrace his potential at Pawtucket in a starting role. Perhaps the transition into a late-inning role is just what he needs — and just what the Red Sox bullpen needs — to become the elite pitcher his “stuff” dictates he should be. So, in a year where the Red Sox are unexpectedly contending for a title, taking a chance on a pitcher like De La Rosa might just be the wild card that pushes them over the edge — hey, it worked for the Angels.

The Risks

There are a number of risks for both the Sox bullpen and De La Rosa’s development if they decide to convert him to a late-innings reliever. As noted above, one spectacular performance in one game is a small sample size, and De La Rosa can be erratic with his command, especially with his fastball. The last thing a pitcher wants to do in a strikeout situation is to walk a man, particularly when Rubby’s HR/9 rate has not been ideal in Pawtucket (1.06). But the Sox have holes to fill in their injury-depleted bullpen, and you have to think that De La Rosa can fill in better than Pedro Beato or Jose De La Torre due to is elite arsenal of strikeout weapons.

Finally, there are a couple of risks the Sox must consider as they pertain to Rubby’s development as a pitcher. There is a slight bit of concern about re-injuring his surgically-repaired elbow if he slots in during late-inning situations. There is more strain on the arm as a bullpen piece than as a starter because the pitcher throws so much harder over a much shorter period of time in the ‘pen. If the Red Sox truly view De La Rosa as the “next great Pedro”, they’d be kicking themselves if they took the risk of putting him in the bullpen only to see him blow out his elbow again. But, when contending for a title in Boston, sometimes the “now” must precede the “future” in calculated situations. Putting De La Rosa in the ‘pen may be one such risky decision.

Also, if Rubby experiences any sort of failure in a high-leverage situation, it could emotionally ruin the great prospect (think Richie Sexson’s grand slam in Cla Meredith’s forced MLB debut). One must remember, however, that this is not Rubby’s first rodeo: his debut came in 2011 with the Dodgers as a 22-year old and he’s shown a great deal of resiliency already to recover from Tommy John surgery. If I’m manager John Farrell, I consider De La Rosa ready for the limelight right now. I take a chance and stick him in some pressure situations to see if I can’t make lightning strike twice: the 2013 Red Sox version of vintage K-Rod could be the last piece to put Boston over the edge in their contention for the 2013 World Series Championship.

Jeff Locke and Rick Porcello are two pitchers with large gaps between their xFIP and ERA. How you value them depends largely on your faith in defense-independent pitching theory. Porcello sports a 3.27 xFIP but a 4.28 ERA. While his ERA- is a pedestrian 105, his xFIP- is an excellent 82. Porcello ranks 42nd among qualified pitchers in FIP WAR at 2.1 while his RA9 WAR ranks 57th at 1.5. Locke on the other hand has posted an unsightly 4.09 xFIP but a sparkling 2.47 ERA. His ERA- is a sterling 68 while his FIP- is 101. Based on FIP WAR, Locke ranks 58th at 1.4 while RA9 WAR puts him at 13th with 3.9. RA9 or “actual run prevention” says Locke is a real ace, the 5th best pitcher in his league, and Porcello is a slightly below average pitcher. xFIP says Porcello is an excellent pitcher, while Locke is merely a middling arm.

In order to understand the difference between Porcello and Locke, I dug deeper into their peripheral stats. Both have similar strikeout rates, with Locke at 18.1% and Porcello, who does not have the luxury of facing his own kind, at 17.8%. While Porcello has a 5.1% walk rate, Locke’s 11.3% is well above the MLB average of 8.0%. Porcello has been victimized by the long ball, as his 13.5% HR/FB rate is the highest since his rookie year, and two full points above his career average of 11.5%. On the other hand, Locke has managed to suppress home runs, as he has posted a 6.8% HR/FB rate. Some of this can be attributed to their respective home fields, as Comerica has a home run factor of 101, while PNC Park’s home run factor of 92 makes it the 3rd most difficult park to hit a home run. I would be wary of attributing any home run avoidance skills to Locke, as he allowed 9 home runs in 51 innings with the Pirates over 2011-12. ZiPs has him projected for a 9.9% HR/FB rate over the remainder of the season. Locke has also enjoyed an excellent LOB%, as his 82.2% is currently 5th in the majors among qualified starters while Porcello’s 69.5% is 74th. MLB average LOB% is 73.3. While Locke’s LOB% seems destined for regression (ZiPS projects it to be 69.0% ROS), a below-average LOB% may be part of Porcello’s profile, as his 69.5% is actually a career-best number.

However, the biggest reason for the ERA separation between Porcello and Locke is the defense behind them. Both Porcello and Locke are groundball pitchers, and their higher than average contact rates make them heavily dependent on their fielders. Porcello’s GB% of 57.2 is 2nd highest in the MLB, while Locke’s 53.3% is 8th highest. The Tigers have a team BABIP% against of .300 which ranks 6th highest in the MLB, while the Pirates are 2nd lowest at .271. Porcello’s BABIP of .313 is 13th highest among qualified starting pitchers, while Locke’s .261 is 75th. The following hand-picked GIFs illustrate the difference.

Porcello works with this:

  (muckracker)

(He doesn’t actually but I imagine the Tigers’ ballboy was inspired by their defense)

And Locke has this:

 (From Forbes to Federal)

The difference in their defenses has contributed to the Tigers’ pitchers underachieving their xFIP, and the Pirates beating their xFIP. While the Tigers pitching staff has a league-best 3.38 xFIP, their team ERA is 6th-best at 3.57.  The Pirates have the 5th-best xFIP at 3.67, but a team ERA of 3.09 that leads the league by a wide margin, with the Braves next at 3.24. Put in other terms, the Tigers ERA is 106% of their team xFIP, while the Pirates ERA is 84% of their team ERA. Rick Porcello’s ERA is 131% of his xFIP, while Jeff Locke’s ERA is 60% of his xFIP.

After an analysis of the Locke and Porcello’s defense-independent stats and their defense-dependent stats, I thought it would be interesting to see what combining the best and worst of both worlds would be. The following chart is Porcello’s actual ERA and then his ERA calculated by multiplying his xFIP by the “Pirates Factor.”

And this chart shows Locke’s actual ERA and then his ERA calculated by multiplying his xFIP by the “Tigers Factor.”

I know, it’s a back-of-the-napkin calculation. xFIP doesn’t adjust for park and league factors, and Porcello’s LOB% probably wouldn’t jump to the Pirates’ team average of 77.1%.  Nevertheless,  its an interesting example of the difference that defense, park, league, and luck factors can have on a pitcher’s ERA over the course of a season. If Porcello pitched for the Pirates, he would probably be widely recognized as a very good pitcher, while if Locke pitched for the Tigers, he would most likely look average or worse. A change of scenery could have a big impact on either pitcher. But hey, who knows, maybe the recent acquisition of this guy can help Porcello look a little better.

Note: I have no idea if I’m the first to do this, but quite frankly I don’t care.

Long before I was a fan of baseball (much less a fan cognizant of sabermetrics), I was a fan of the NFL, and more specifically, of people writing their opinions of the day-to-day happenings of the NFL. One of my favorite opinion-writers (or “columnists”, if you prefer) was, and is, a Mr. Gregg Easterbrook, who wrote, and still writes, a weekly column for ESPN during the NFL season, entitled Tuesday Morning Quarterback. One of the article’s more enjoyable endeavors–for me, at least–was tracking the best of the “unwanted players”, the criteria for which Mr. Easterbrook defined as follows: “A player must have been undrafted, or been waived, or been let go in free agency when his original club made no bona-fide attempt to retain him.”

In baseball, more so than most other sports (or so it seems), the majority of successful players are high-round draft picks (i.e. first 3 rounds). So recently, I began wondering: which active players have been good, over the course of their careers, after being “unwanted”?

For the purpose of this exercise, I defined “unwanted”  as simply late-round draft picks, as there doesn’t appear to be too many examples of undrafted* U.S. players having done well (the only active ones I could find were Greg Dobbs and a bunch of relief pitchers, and Greg Dobbs is fucking Greg Dobbs). As a cutoff (to ensure only true “unwanted” players were included), I excluded everyone drafted within the first 200 picks–sorry, Shane Victorino and Aaron Harang–and everyone with less than 20 career WAR–so long, Marlon Byrd and Josh Willingham. Also, draft spots were determined via ESPN (at the bottom right of each player’s page is their draft year and position, among other information); there may be some discrepancies between those and, say, Baseball-Reference’s. Oh, and WAR values are as of Tuesday, August 6th.

These criteria yielded 24 results; they are listed below in order of lowest to highest draft pick.

Matt Holliday–210th overall (7th round) in 1998; 43.8 WAR**

Prior to this post, I Googled “mlb late round draft picks“, and looked at a few of the top results, on Comcast, Yahoo, and ESPN. Many of the players listed appear later on this list, but Holliday was conspicuously missing. I can’t decide which is odder–that a player that had 4 consecutive 5-WAR seasons went in the 7th round, or that no one seems to realize this. Regardless, the Rockies ended up picking Holliday out of Stillwater HS (OK), after drafting such quality players as Matt Roney, Choo Freeman, and Jeff Winchester, and it worked out pretty well for them.

Most teams were apparently scared off because they thought he might pursue football instead, after being one of the top quarterbacks in the state; he was recruited by Oklahoma State, but instead chose to go to MLB. Based on his -24.8 career Outfield Arm runs above average, I can’t be too certain he’d have made it as a passer. (As an aside, one of the Rockies’ other picks in that draft is later on this list.)

Allan James Burnett–217th overall (8th round) in 1995; 35.9 WAR

Contrary to popular belief (or at least my belief, before I looked this up; not a whole lot of people care about Burnett, from what I understand), Burnett was not drafted by the Marlins, with whom he spent his first 6 major-league seasons; the Mets selected him out of Central Arkansas Christian HS, seeing him as everyone else saw him–a raw prospect with potential, but someone who needed a lot of work.

Just how much work was needed became apparent pretty quickly, when Burnett walked 7.35 (!) batters per nine innings in his Mets career. In no small part because of these control issues, in 1998 the Mets traded him to the Marlins in one of their (i.e. the Marlins’) many infamous fire sale deals. Along with Burnett, the fire sales brought the Marlins Derrek Lee and…well, that’s pretty much it. Burnett, however, couldn’t have been happier with the trade, later saying “if [he] hadn’t gotten traded, [he] probably would’ve retired.”

So, a major league player, that is to say, an ACTUAL HUMAN BEING, at one point desired a trade to Baseball Hell? Hold on, I need a sec…Okay, I’m good. Who’s next?

Coco Crisp–222nd overall (7th round) in 1999; 27.2 WAR

I’m with DJ Gallo on this one–it’s simply criminal that it’s taken TWELVE YEARS to have a Crisp-cereal tie-in. And, of course, Billy Beane is the one to make it happen. That son-of-a-bitch, thinks he’s so damn smart…But I digress. After being a graduate of baseball’s RBI program, Crisp was selected by the Cardinals, in the same year they selected one of the BOAT (Best Of All Time, for those who are unedumacated), who will also appear further down on this list. I think it’s a sign of the insanity of baseball that the Cardinals–widely known to be one of MLB’s most well-run organizations–could get three (count ’em, three) first rounders in one draft, and completely whiff on all of them (not to mention whiffing on their next six picks). But, of course, being the Cardinals, they still ended up drafting two quality major leaguers.

Moving on…Crisp had shown impressive plate discipline, but little power, and academic issues hindered him along the way. (In that article, he brags about getting a 1070 on his SAT; am I missing something here?) Because he frequently transferred from high school to high school, he actually only ended up playing one season of high school ball, then went to Southern University in Louisiana. They wouldn’t let him play, however, as they couldn’t sort through all his high school transcripts (what are they, the VA?); since he had only gone there to play baseball, he sat out of classes, and was nearly expelled.

That summer, he was signed by the Angels; as a freshman at a four-year college, the Angels were forbidden from signing him–apparently they didn’t know he was in college–and the deal was voided by MLB. Crisp, however, was thankful for the error, saying it “put [him] back on the radar.” The next year, he went to Pierce Junior College in California, and was good enough academically that he was able to be drafted, albeit as a second baseman. The Cards moved him to the outfield, traded him to the Indians for Chuck Finley, and Cereal Man’s career was off.

Kevin Youkilis–243rd overall (8th round) in 2001; 28.4 WAR

The man with the most annoying batting stance in the majors (not to mention the most ironic nickname) was not, unlike many of the Red Sox’ other recent great players, a high round draft pick. Rather, he slid to the 8th round, where the Sox picked him out of Cincinnati; this was due to concerns about his, uh, voluptuous physique, along with–get this!–concerns about his defense. As an Orioles fan who has seen more than his (or the Orioles’, I guess) fair share of base hits robbed by Youk, this was news to me. Apparently, with a career 27.2 Fielding Runs Above Average, this is news to everyone else, too.

As an added irony, the Red Sox’ top pick in that draft was Kelly Shoppach–basically the polar opposite of Youk. And of course, as another irony, the player the Red Sox traded him to get more playing time for–Will Middlebrooks–is also basically his polar opposite.

Mark Ellis–271st overall (9th round) in 1999; 26.1 WAR

I’m going to be honest here for a second: Before I embarked on this endeavor, I had no idea who the hell Mark Ellis was. I vaguely remembered him from a series the Dodgers played against the O’s back in April, but other than that? Nada. But, for the purpose of this list, I needed to find out more about him, so I’d be able to fill this space. So I searched. And I searched. And I searched some more, ’till my searcher was sore. And you know what conclusion I came to? Mark Ellis is completely insignificant. He’s average. He’s every kid on the playground that didn’t get picked on. He’s a business casual potted plant, a human white sale. He’s VH1, RoboCop 2 and Back to the Future 3. He’s the center slice of a square cheese pizza–actually, that sounds delicious. I’m the center slice of a square cheese pizza. He’s Jim Belushi.

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. But seriously, though Ellis has had a pretty nice career, he’s just flown pretty much under the radar for most of it. He was drafted by the Royals out of Florida, and went to Oakland (where he spent most of his career) in the three-team Johnny Damon trade. As a prospect, he had excellent plate discipline, but little power, and was probably severely undervalued. This was probably just a problem with being drafted in the pre-Moneyball era; had he been 10 years younger, he probably would’ve been drafted much higher. Of course, once he came up, his numbers spoke for themselves.

Howie Kendrick–294th overall (10th round) in 2002; 20.0 WAR

Funny story with Kendrick: I actually started writing this piece on Saturday the 3rd, with only 23 players meeting the criteria. Then I saw Kendrick, who at the time had 19.8 career WAR. I knew by the time this piece was finished, he’d probably have 20, meeting the criteria and making me look like a dumbass for excluding him. So, even though this piece was finished by early Saturday, I had to wait until Tuesday to publish it.

Anyways…Kendrick was taken by the Angels out of St. John’s River State Community College in 2002; yeah, I’m confused too. I mean, really, what kind of self-respecting baseball player goes to a goddamn community college? It’s not like any historically great hitters–hitters that may or may not appear later on this list, and that may or may not have already been referenced as appearing later on this list–went to a community college.

Annnnnnyways…Angels guru Tom Kotchman found Kendrick’s talents wasting away at SJRSCC (damn, long anagram), and was thunderstruck that “there weren’t other scouts there…” and that “…other JC’s [had] cut this guy…” He alerted the Angels immediately, who drafted him later that year. Oddly enough, like Youkilis, concerns about Kendrick’s defense were apparently what scared other teams off. 8 years and 30.3 fRAA later, it’s safe to say those concerns were unfounded.

Dan “Yo Mama So” Uggla***–338th overall (11th round) in 2001; 24.5 WAR

Long before he was subjected to the unbridled fury of any and every Braves fan (seriously, when you type “Dan Uggla is” into Google, results 2-4 are “terrible”, “a jerk”, and “a douche”; also, people apparently care about his marital status), Uggla was actually drafted, not by the Marlins, but by the Diamondbacks, out of Memphis. The Marlins swiped him in the Rule 5 draft, just one of many shrewd management moves by the genius owner Jeffrey Loria.

Many teams were scared off because of Uggla’s vertically-challenged nature–less than 6 feet tall? The horror!–and tendency for whiffing; this problem has manifested itself in the major leagues as well. As with Youkilis and Kendrick, he was also viewed as a defensive liability. “Well, Youkilis and Kendrick sure proved their doubters wrong!” you, the naively optimistic reader, say. “Golly gee whiz, I’ll bet Uggla did the same thing!” Yeah, about that…

Juan Pierre–390th overall (13th round) in 1998; 23.4 WAR

Couple things on Pierre:

1. The fact that he exists on this list shows the inherent flaw with it–I’m taking career aggregate WAR values, as opposed to averages per, say, 600 plate appearances. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

2. I’m racist, I guess. Before this, I had always thought Pierre was Hispanic, and was signed as an IFA out of some Central-American country. Now, in my defense, how many people who aren’t Hispanic are named “Juan”? I mean, really? Well, as it turns out, I’m not the only one confused about this; also, he was apparently named after Juan Marichal.

3. When the Rockies picked Pierre out of South Alabama (in the same draft they picked Holliday), the scouts liked his speed, but were unsure how he’d fare with wooden bats, fearing it might sap what little power he already had. Huh. Maybe those people who are payed to evaluate talent for a living are actually good at their jobs! I mean, now that I write that, I realize that I should have seen this all along. I mean, it’s not like scouts have ever completely missed on a guy who turned out to be…

Albert Pujols–402nd overall (13th round) in 1999; 87.4 WAR

…One of the best hitters ever. *Sigh* Well, anyways…

Pujols had to fight adversity long before his major league career even began; after immigrating to America from the DR, he had to deal with an alcoholic father and no mother. Despite this, he still managed to excel at high school baseball–when he wasn’t being IBB’d, he hit 8 home runs in 33 plate appearances–but received little attention from big name colleges and was forced to go to Maple Woods Community College in Missourah. (Fun fact: Logan Morrison, the Marlin first baseman, also attended MWCC. That is the only time Logan Morrison will be mentioned in the vicinity of Albert Pujols in his life.)

Pujols (predictably) raked at MWCC, hitting .461 with 22 homers; he was (predictably) ignored by everyone, mainly because they were unsure where he’d play, and were doubtful about his age. And, like so many of the players on this list, teams were concerned over his build. The Cardinals, apparently the only sane team in the majors, were happy to swoop in and pick him with the 401st pick, and the rest is history.

While on the subject of Pujols: it seems that one of the best players of the generation should have some good nicknames assigned to him. When I Googled “Albert Pujols Nickname“, it gave me a lot of results, but none that I’d heard used before. Does he have any nicknames that are actually popular?

James Shields–466th overall (16th round) in 2000; 26.1 WAR

Before I start, I’d like to make a suggestion to Cameron, Sullivan, or whoever else, for a future article: Players (maybe just active players) with the highest career gap between fWAR and rWAR. Shields’ differential is pretty high, as his rWAR is only 19.5. Most of the players, I’m sure, would be pitchers, but it might also be interesting to see for position players as well. Food for thought.

Anyways, Big Game James was drafted by the Rays out of William S. Hart HS (CA); he had been good his junior year there, but a shoulder injury (i.e. pitcher Kryptonite) he suffered his senior year scared many teams off; fear that he may forgo the draft and go to LSU didn’t help either. The shoulder injury worry wasn’t an illusion–he missed the entire 2002 season after undergoing surgery on it–but it sure as hell hasn’t resurfaced since, as he’s pitched (or is on pace to pitch) 200 innings in every year since his rookie year. In a draft where Rocco Baldelli was the top pick, this was probably the best possible outcome for the Rays.

Jake “Michelle Bachmann Hates Vaccinations for H” Peavy****–472nd overall (15th round) in 1999; 35.8 WAR

The curious case of Jake Peavy is one of hypocrisy. In his senior year at St. Paul’s Episcopal School (AL), Peavy dominated the competition, leading to many scholarship offers. Peavy was especially interested in Auburn, which was offering a full ride; apparently, Peavy committed to Auburn, but then said he would go pro if taken in the first 4 rounds. When Peavy was drafted by the Padres in the 15th round, he eventually did sign with them–but for the price of a fourth-rounder. So, just to recap, he lied to Auburn, saying he’d play for them; then he lied to MLB, saying he’d only play for them if drafted in the first 4 rounds; then swindled them out of 4th-rounder money(yeah, it probably wasn’t that much more money, whatever).

Concerns about college weren’t the only problem with Peavy. In the words of former Padres scout Mark Wasinger, who discovered him prior to the draft in 1999, “At 6-foot-1, he wasn’t the 6-foot-5, Brandon Workman physical type that is the prototype. A lot of people thought that for Peavy, maybe that wear and tear might not suit him for the long term.” Sure enough, injuries have plagued Peavy (at least to some degree) for his career–he’s been on the DL in 5 of the past 6 seasons. Still, for a player who averaged 4.3 WAR between 2004 and 2008, this was one helluva bargain.

Ian Kinsler–496th overall (17th round) in 2003; 28.0 WAR

Kinsler was drafted not once, but twice, by the Diamondbacks, in the 29th round in 2000 and the 26th round in 2001, deciding to forgo them for Central Arizona College and ASU, respectively. By the time the Rangers took Kinsler out of Missourah in 2003, he had moved all the way up to the 17th round! So that just goes to show, kids–if you keep working hard, you can improve from completely irrelevant to slightly less completely irrelevant! Oh, and be a three-time All-Star, 2-time member of the 30-30 club, and one of the best second baseman, if not all-around players, in the game of baseball.

Kinsler himself has said that he didn’t worry about his major-league future while in college, saying he “…always knew [he]’d get a chance and get drafted, but [he] basically had to prove [him]self to put [him]self on the map.” When he was drafted, he weighed 170 pounds–pretty light for a six-footer. He made a commitment to himself after that to pack on some muscle mass, and given that he’s now listed at 200 pounds, I’d say he achieved that goal.

Mike “The Foulin’ Italian” Napoli*****–500th overall (17th round) in 2000; 21.3 WAR

Before he was providing a soothing breeze to everyone in the first few rows, Napoli was drafted by the Angels out of Charles W. Flanagan HS (FL). Apparently, he didn’t “fit the prospect prototype“, or as former Angels scout Todd Claus put it, “lots of people…couldn’t get past his body.” Concerns about that body, along with the usual worrying over defense, led to him skidding in the draft, until the Angels picked him up. Oddly enough, though, one caveat not mentioned about the pre-draft Napoli was fear of injury–odd, considering he’s qualified for the batting title exactly once in his eight-year career.

Interesting side note (which the article points out): the 17th round of the 2000 draft also featured future quality major-leaguers Josh Willingham, Rich Harden, and (although he didn’t sign) Paul Maholm. The best pick of that round, however, was Napoli, an catcher who was much better at the plate than behind it–the antithesis to which would be…

Russell Martin–511th overall (17th round) in 2002; 25.0 WAR

Even before his incredible year this year, Martin had 21.2 career WAR, making him the 4th-best catcher in baseball over that time (Napoli was 5th). So why was he still around in the 17th round, when the Dodgers selected him out of Chipola Junior College (which another player on this list also attended)? Well, he didn’t really have a position–the Dodgers picked him as a third baseman, but thought he might play shortstop or even a corner outfield spot. In spring training 2003, however, the Dodgers experimented by having him attempt to catch flamethrowing, wild righty Jose Diaz, with good results. From there on out, he was a catcher.

Also a cause for his low draft position: the Dodgers feared he didn’t have enough power to be an everyday third baseman. At the major league level, however, he has a respectable .141 ISO, and as as everyone knows (or should know) offensive standards for catchers are much lower than for third baseman. That’s why this guy somehow continues to exist. In a draft where the Dodgers would pick James Loney, Jonathan Broxton, Eric Stults, and Martin’s current teammate James McDonald, he (i.e. Martin) was clearly the best pick.

Placido Polanco–530th overall (19th round) in 1994; 38.5 WAR

Earlier this year, Matt Klaassen wrote a swan song for Carlos Lee; soon, I fear, the same shall have to be done for Placy. However, the purpose of this is not to examine the career of one of the best defenders of this millenium, but to look back at how that career came to be. And for Polanco, that proved to much easier said than done. Seriously, there’s almost nothing on the guy! But I persevered, and this is what I discovered:

Polanco was born in the DR, leaning baseball in Manny Mota’s Little League program. After excelling at this level, he won a scholarship with Miami-Dade Community College, and immigrated to the U.S. (though he did not become a citizen until 2008). Because he went to a junior college, he was not as publicized–remember, they didn’t got no internet–and as a result, he went undrafted until the 19th round, when the Cardinals took him.

At first, he struggled a bit in the minor leagues, especially–believe it or not–with the glove, committing 10 errors in his first 32 games (yeah, errors are a terrible statistic for measuring defensive contributions, I know; that’s still really bad, though). He later said he “…made a lot of throwing errors, from not really knowing the game, not knowing when to hold on to the ball and when to throw it.” Suffice to say, he now knows when to hold and when to throw.

Andy Pettitte–594th overall (22nd round) in 1990; 66.9 WAR

How’s this for surprising? Pettitte–the only one of the US-born Yankees who wasn’t a high-round draft pick–said in 2008 that signing with the Yankees “was the dumbest thing [he’s] ever done.******” How’s this for more surprising? Pettitte was apparently hefty enough to be the starting center and nose tackle on his Texas high school football team, as well as a pitcher who threw in the mid-80’s. Because of this combination of (relatively) low velocity and a burly figure, he was picked late in the draft by the Yankees, but went to San Jacinto Junior College.

Now, this is where it gets tricky. Pettitte was picked in 1990, but went to college instead. So why does his profile page on ESPN list him as not having attended college? Well, because of the “draft-and-follow” rule–which states, in a nutshell, that a pick who attends a junior college may be signed at any point 51 weeks after the draft–the Yankees were able to sign him on May 25th, 1991, almost pushing the DAF rule to its limit. But why would they devote this much time to a mere 22nd-round pick? Were they able to see into the future with the crystal ball Rex Ryan used to predict the Jets’ Super Bowl victory?

Perhaps…or perhaps, during the DAF year, Pettitte was coached by the now-legendary Wayne Graham, who shaped him from an offensive lineman physique into…well, Andy Pettitte. As is detailed in the first article, when Pettitte got fitter, his fastball got faster, up to the low- to mid-90’s it occupied during his dominant stretch in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. So to summarize, the Yankees got one of the best pitchers in their history through a rule quirk that almost no one knows about. I think I speak for all of us when I say…goddamn Yankees.

Jose Bautista–599th overall (20th round) in 2000; 21.8 WAR

As you’ve probably forgotten by now, this whole brouhaha was based on the concept of “unwanted” players as told by Gregg Easterbrook. His definition involves not only players who were undrafted (which, I’ve discussed, are scarce in MLB) but also those who had been repeatedly released by their teams, and had bounced around for a few years before finding a true home. By this definition, Joey Bats is the best unwanted player on this list. Just in case you didn’t know, here’s the story of his major-league career:

1. Goes to Chipola Junior College in Florida (the college of Russell Martin) after immigrating from the DR.

2. Is drafted by the Pirates. (To all the Bucs fans, pining for their team to plunder the farm system for Giancarlo Stanton, just know that your team could’ve had one of the best right fielders in baseball. Just remember that, along with every other misery Pirates fans must always carry with them.)

3. Is selected in the 2003 Rule 5 Draft by the Orioles, and is on the Opening Day roster. Go O’s!

4. Is claimed off waivers on June 3rd by the Rays. Stupid O’s!

5. Is purchased on June 28th by the Royals. Stupid Rays!

6. Is traded on July 30th to the New York Mets in exchange for Justin Huber. Stupid Royals!

7. Without playing a game for the Mets, is traded back to his original team (i.e. the Pirates) along with Ty Wigginton and Matt Peterson, in exchange for Jeff Keppinger and Kris Benson. Stupid Mets! Also, Jeff Keppinger? Ha!

8. Just to recap, Bautista was on 5 teams in the same season. Know how many other players have done that? NONE!

9. Plays in only 11 games for the Pirates in 2005.

10. Is a Pirates regular for 2006 and 2007; posts wRC+’s of 96 and 97, respectively.

11. Struggles through 2008, and is traded midseason to the Blue Jays for a PTBNL (Robinzon Diaz). Stupid Pirates!

12. Is mediocre in 2009, posting a 102 wRC+.

13. This.

‘Nuff said.

Jason Bay–645th overall (22nd round) in 2000; 20.4 WAR

Now, here’s where I bend the rules a bit. See, at the time of my writing this, Bay no longer exists on any major league roster, and is therefore not an “active player”. However, he did play this season, so I’m including him (along with the player two spots down on the list).

Long before Bay was the poster boy for horrible contracts in sports (and the poster boy for, well, the Mets), he was a quality major leaguer–over 2003 to 2009, the fifth-best offensive left fielder, in fact. Long before that, he was picked out of Gonzaga by the Expos, and involved in many a trade before he became a regular (Lou Collier, Jason Middlebrook, and Brian Giles******* going the other way in those trades).

Long before all that, however, he was a Canadian high schooler who was interested in, and very good at, a non-hockey sport–not exactly a one-way ticket to success. Undeterred, he went to North Idaho CC–basically the only place that would take him–and proceeded to crush the competition. And his reward for the perseverance? He played at glamorous Gonzaga and was drafted by a now-defunct franchise! Well, at least he’ll always have the hatred of the largest city in the U.S.…

Roy Oswalt–684th overall (23rd round) in 1996; 49.6 WAR

Oswalt’s career path was similar to that of Pettitte–a dominant high-school pitcher, who fell in the draft because of concerns about his weight. Except, Oswalt’s problem was the opposite of Pettitte–he weighed too little, a 150-pound senior at nearly 6 feet tall. So I guess Oswalt’s more like Kinsler than Pettitte. Whatever.

The obscurity of Oswalt’s school, in (essentially) the pre-internet days, certainly didn’t help his case. Oswalt attended Weir High, in Weir, Mississippi; the town had a total population of about 500, and there were about 30 in Oswalt’s class. Before Oswalt badgered the school, it didn’t even have a baseball team. After a year pitching for Holmes Community College, the Astros were apparently the only team to scout Oswalt, and they were smitten. Not quite smitten enough to draft him before the 23rd round (because they were the only team to scout him, they let him fall in the draft, knowing no one else would take him), but still smitten. He didn’t sign immediately however, and the Astros used the DAF rule on him, allowing him to pitch another year at Holmes CC. So, I guess he is more like Pettitte. Whatever.

Signing him proved to be a little daunting, as he was being offered a full ride from Mississippi State, and his boyhood dream had always been to pitch for the Bulldogs. Getting half a million as a signing bonus tends to make people forget about their boyhood dreams, however, and Oswalt was no exception. On May 18th, 1997, pushing the DAF rule to its limit (like Pettitte), Oswalt signed with the Astros, and, well, you know the rest. Pretty good for a 23rd-rounder in 1996. Speaking of which…

Ted Lilly–688th overall (23rd round) in 1996; 26.3 WAR

On Lilly, I have a few things to say:

1. If only he’d finished .1 WAR lower! Then I could’ve called him “Marathon Man”, and made horrible puns like “Why don’t you just try pitching?” and things of that ilk. Oh, well. A man can dream, though.

2. Lilly, like Bay, is no longer on a major league roster, so he shouldn’t technically be considered an active player. However, he played in the majors this season (not well, but he played), so he’s on the list. Deal with it!

3. Was the 23rd round of the 1996 draft the best late draft round ever? If not, certainly one of the best. I mean, only 3 players from it made it to the major leagues, and one of them was Jason Smith, so it wasn’t exactly deep, but still–74.7 combined WAR, for the TWENTY-THIRD FUCKING ROUND! Maybe a subject for a future article…

4. Lilly was drafted by the Dodgers in 1996, then traded to the Expos in 1998, along with Peter Bergeron, Wilton Guerrero, and Jonathan Tucker, for Hiram Bocachica, Mark Grudzielanek, and Carlos Perez. Obviously, looking back, Lilly was the best player in that trade (though an argument could be made for Grudzie), so why was he considered  a low-level prospect? Well…I’m not really sure. Seriously, I couldn’t find anything about the bastard! I mean, there was this article, which talked about his minor-league ascension and success, but nothing about him pre-draft. Well, 23 out of 24 ain’t bad. Hey, at least I’m better than the Phillies.

Kyle Lohse–862nd overall (29th round) in 1996; 24.7 WAR

Yeah, that’s right, another pitcher from 1996! Think I’m done? Baby, I’m just gettin’ started! Well, anyways…Lohse’s main clam to fame is being one of the only Native Amuricans in MLB, along with Joba Chamberlain and Jacoby Ellsbury (insert racist joke about how “he should play for the Indians or Braves!” here). Despite being a star athlete in high school, he was largely unnoticed, and fell in the draft. He went to Butte College after the Cubs picked him, ‘cuz of that nifty DAF rule, and signed with them at the end of his freshman year.

What kept him so low in the draft? His velocity was never great as a minor leaguer, and he projected to be a back-of-the-rotation starter; with a career ERA of 4.79 innings prior to 2011, he achieved that goal. Then, of course, came 2011 until the present, during which he’s pitched to a 3.14 ERA and provided 6.7  of that career WAR. This sudden turnaround, while fairly unprecedented, is not necessarily luck–he did make some major changes to his pitch selection, and changing your repertoire can lead to new success, even for old, unproven pitchers (see Dickey, Robert Alan).

Travis Hafner–923rd overall (31st round) in 1996; 20.9 WAR

Okay, seriously? How many players from the goddamn 1996 draft are there?!?! *Sigh* Well, Pronk was similar to Kendrick and Pujols in that he went to a community college–Cowley County CC–and this certainly contributed to his low position in the draft. (As an aside, whoever enters colleges for ESPN must’ve really liked CCCC.) Though Hafner had natural ability at baseball (obviously) before coming to CCCC, he knew absolutely zilch about the rules and lingo, having to ask his coach during practice, “What’s a fungo?” Nature, however, won out over nurture, and Hafner soon mashed at the (low) collegiate level.

When he was drafted by the Rangers, though, he struggled early on; by the time he hit his stride in 1999, and was major-league ready in 2002, the Rangers (like the Rangers today) had a plethora of high-caliber first baseman-DH types (namely, Mark Teixeira and Rafael Palmeiro). With Ivan Rodriguez an impending free agent, however, they needed a catcher, so after the 2002 season, the Rangers traded him to the Indians, along with Aaron Myette, in exchange for Ryan Drese and Einar Diaz. The Indians were prepared to let Jim Thome, a free agent, walk, so they needed a new first base-DH type; after a mediocre first year, Hafner did a pretty good Thome impersonation (at least when healthy).

Raul Ibanez–1006th overall (36th round) in 1992; 20.8 WAR

Well, we’re down to our final two. I feel like we’ve grown closer over this whole process. You know what I mean? At the beginning, we were just doing this because we felt like we had to, but now, we’re doing it because we want to. What’s that? I’m just being creepy, and I should get to the explanation of why Ibanez was drafted as late as he was? Okay then. I thought what we had was special, but I guess I was mistaken.

Ibanez (one of the two “millennium men” in the countdown; if you can’t figure out why they’re called that, you’re on the wrong website) was successful at high school and went to play college baseball at Miami-Dade CC (the same school as Polanco). He was viewed as a project by major league scouts, and was drafted by the Mariners accordingly. Now, this isn’t an uncommon path–a player is told he’s flawed, gets drafted in the late rounds, goes back to school to correct those flaws, and gets drafted higher the next year. In Ibanez’s case, though, going back to school wasn’t an option, as his father died a few months before the draft; knowing that his father would’ve wanted him to play, Ibanez signed with the Mariners (who were prepared to use the DAF rule on him).

Now, back to why he was drafted so late: Ibanez was seen as someone who would take several years to develop into an everyday player; as the article above puts it, “Ibañez is to baseball what Kurt Warner was to the NFL, a late-blooming talent no one knew how to develop.” Once he did develop, he turned into a quality player, which makes him–unquestionably–the best of the active late-round draft picks. At least, it would make him that, if not for…

Mark Buehrle–1139th overall (38th round) in 1998; 47.3 WAR

Buehrle?…………..Buehrle?…………..Buehrle?…………..Buehrle?…………..

The premier innings-eater of the new millennium, as well as heading towards a 13th straight 200-inning season (pretty impressive when you put it in perspective), Buehrle must’ve been, at the very least, a third- or fourth-round pick, right? Nope. He is, in fact, the other millennium man on the list.

As a high schooler in Missourah, Buehrle had the MJ treatment (i.e. he didn’t make the baseball team his freshman and sophomore years); this was enough to make him consider quitting baseball forever. He couldn’t stay away, however, and was good enough in the two years he did play that he got accepted to glamorous Jefferson College, where he had a successful two years. One of those years was prior to the draft, when he was picked by the White Sox; the other was after, when the DAF rule was used (he did threaten to re-enter the draft in 1999, so the White Sox had to make a pretty large offer). Never a top prospect due to a mediocre repertoire, Buehrle slipped under most everyone’s radar. It’s safe to say that wasn’t how things should’ve played out.

Overall, it’s safe to say that all of these players outperformed their expectations significantly. It’s men like this–the hard workers, the perseverers, the ne’er-quitters–that make baseball so great. Oh, and also this guy.

————————————————————————————–

*Apparently, “undrafted” isn’t a word, or so the red squiggly would have me believe. Huh. So “squiggly” is a word, but “undrafted” isn’t? ‘Tis a strange, strange world. Also, “tis” isn’t a word either? WHEN WILL IT END?!?!?

**Am I the only one who’s annoyed by some of the columnists on this site using a plus sign before every WAR value? Call me crazy, but I’d say the positivity is implied by the lack of any preceding symbol.

***I’m so funny, aren’t I?

****Might’ve crossed a line here. Also, FanGraphs should really start doing footnotes, à la Grantland.

*****I swear to God, I’ll make this work.

******Yes, I get that this was done sarcastically.

*******Another unproven prospect traded in that Giles deal? Oliver Perez, whose career has been eerily similar to that of Bay.

The success of the Pirates has become arguably the biggest narrative of this season. They sit pretty at 67-44, with a game and a half lead on the St. Louis Cardinals. While some fans of the Pirates are merely thirsting for fourteen more wins to guarantee the end of the 20-year losing skid, analysts widely regard the Pirates as playoff-bound, if not contenders for the division.

Presently, we’ll continue the endless discussion of why the Pirates have succeeded thus far, but perhaps with a new spin.

The Pirates have been trending up under the tenure of Clint Hurdle, but a closer look at the numbers doesn’t necessarily indicate an offensive success, but a noticeable improvement in the defense.

Run Differential

In 2010, the last season before Clint Hurdle, the Pirates finished 57-105 with a despicable -279 run differential. Since then, the run differential has improved incrementally to -102 in 2011 and -23 in 2012, when finishing .500 felt inevitable. This year, the Bucs have outscored their opponents by 49 runs, which isn’t much, but is in an improvement over where it was on August 3^rd in 2010 (-205,) 2011 (-12,) and 2012 (+33.)

Metrics

Additionally, a look at some of the advanced metrics indicate an improvement in the defense of the Pirates. In 2010, the Pirates had -77 DRS and a -7.7 UZR/150. In 2011, that improved to -29 and -3.5 (respectively,) and in 2012, -25 and -2.6. Still not great numbers, but they reflect an ostensible difference under Clint Hurdle. In 2013, these numbers are all in the green: 43 DRS, 5.1 UZR/150. Obviously, these are subject to change, but the trend continues.

BABIP

Perhaps it is an illogical step to go backwards from advanced stats like DRS and UZR/150 to one as simple as BABIP, but it seems to me that this one sticks out the most and combines the picture of improved pitching and an improved defense. The noticeable trend has continued, as these are the defensive BABIPs of the Pirates over the last few years:

2010: .311

2011: .300

2012: .286

2013: .270 (1^st in MLB)

My simplistic mind appreciates BABIP in this particular instance, because this tells me something clear. These numbers are microcosmic of the fact that the Pirates are improving in the area of simply converting batted balls into outs, and that is nothing but a good sign for a club looking to win games, but it is especially good for a club with the offensive woes the Pirates endure.

Say what you will about the overuse of the Pirates bullpen, and it will not be argued at present. It is my hope that someone can combine these defensive numbers with pitch f/x data and create a more clear picture of how the Pirates have succeeded with a group of ragamuffins. This is a start to a conversation and hopefully a case study into the effectiveness of a good defense and how it can counteract and overcome an anemic offense such as that of the Bucs. We may just see how it works out in the postseason.