Yesterday, I identified the hitters who have experienced the largest increase in their Contact% as compared with last year. So today I will check in on the other side of the coin, the big decliners. Just like the Contact% surgers, an appearance on this list isn’t necessarily a terrible thing. Sometimes a hitter consciously decides to swing harder in an attempt to increase their power output, so it’s a trade-off. This is exactly the opposite of what I said might happen for the Contact% surgers, so let’s see if any patterns emerge.

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Yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of Kerry Wood’s 20 strikeout complete game shutout. Looking back on it, Shane Reynolds‘ eight innings of one run, 10 strikeout ball is nothing to sneeze at either. Baseball is great.

On today’s agenda:
1. Andrew Cashner watch
2. Pleasantly suprising two home run days
3. Gavin Floyd out for the year
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• As Colin suggested last night, the Red Sox placed Andrew Bailey on the DL backdated by a week. He should return in not too long if the soreness subsides in his biceps, but if Bailey has one weakness it’s his ability to stay healthy.  Joel Hanrahan would theoretically be back to his pre-season role as the full time closer for the Sox but Hanrahan blew the save tonight off of a Brian Dozier home run and left the game with an injury. We’ll have to wait to hear more information on Hanrahan but behind him in the seventh and eighth innings is Junichi Tazawa  and Koji Uehara who have both been fantastic this season. One of them could figure to pick up a save if Hanrahan were to miss any time and both should be considered great options for holds this week as well. While Uehara won’t pitch consecutive days for the Red Sox I assume he’ll get the first nod for saves if Hanrahan and Bailey were to be out.

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This week I will examine a few items, a couple pitchers making rehab starts, a couple pitchers returning from the disabled list, a couple pitchers with large velocity drops and a few hitters dealing with recent back injuries.

• Francisco Liriano and John Danks are making rehab starts. John Danks is throwing his fastball at 87 to 90 mph. These values are at or below his 2012 average value of 90.1 mph.

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At the beginning of last year, we took some heat for leaving Adrian Gonzalez near the top of the first base rankings. Our reasoning, if I can speak for the consensus ranking crew, was that power takes the longest to stabilize and we didn’t know for sure whether or not the power was going to come back. The player himself said his shoulder didn’t hurt any more. As the season progressed, the truth became more obvious, and he dropped in the rankings.

Going into this season, we had three consecutive half-seasons of evidence that his power was gone. We dropped him in the rankings, and I even made a bet that the other former Padre first baseman — Anthony Rizzo — would outperform him this year. Now the player himself has admitted what we’ve known for a while and suspected for even longer.

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We’re roughly one month into the season, which means it’s time to update the tiered rankings for each position. Though I wanted to be conservative and not alter too many rankings based on data from only one month, some changes seemed warranted.

Here are the tiers:

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Everth Cabrera is off to a relatively hot start to the season and has seemed to make strides in certain areas that were causes for concern entering the season. He has already matched his home run total of last season and his strikeout rate has dropped six percent while keeping his walk rate at a similar level as last season. This has resulted in his wRC+ jumping from 87 to 114 with a BABIP that is equal to his career norm. Now, will he continue to produce and be a shortstop who should be starting in 12 team formats? At this point, I have confidence in Cabrera continuing to add value and I am looking to acquire him in any leagues where I am struggling at second or shortstop.
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Just two years ago, Dee Gordon was enjoying the fanfare of being listed amongst Baseball America’s Top 50 Prospects. The son of major league reliever Tom Gordon, the young shortstop was receiving rave reviews for his defensive play and, most importantly, his speed. He had cruised through the Dodgers system relatively quickly, got called up mid-season in 2011 and earned the starting nod to open the 2012 season. Not everything had gone according to plan as injuries derailed a lot of the past two seasons, but Gordon had some memorable moments that indicated he could be an impact player at the big league level. Well, with Hanley Ramirez hitting the disabled list for already the second time in this young season, Gordon is finally getting his chance to show what he can do. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Straily| Oakland Athletics | @ Seattle on Friday

Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like Dan Straily has been around for awhile. In reality, he’s still very much a prospect. He made his tenth major league start yesterday and has just over 50 career big league innings. And he’s a good prospect. He displayed good strikeout and walks skills throughout the minors, especially in the upper minors. His BB% was under 8% in stops at A+, AA, and AAA, and his K% was above 30% in about 150 innings of work at AA and AAA. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Slowey was an afterthought this offseason. After signing a minor-league deal with the Miami Marlins, all but the most dedicated Marlins’ blogs neglected to write up the signing. In fairness, Slowey hadn’t pitched much in each of the last two seasons. A stress fracture in his rib cage ended his 2012 season after just eight minor-league starts, and he spent a fair part of 2011 in the minors. There was a legitimate question over whether Slowey would ever reach the majors again, let alone be an effective pitcher. But seven starts into 2013, Slowey has re-established himself as a bonafide major-leaguer. Though some regression is in store, Slowey’s landed in the perfect situation for a pitcher with his skill-set.

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