As mentioned yesterday, the Cincinnati Reds outfield is something of a mess right now. However, there is one leviathan-sized exception: 21 year-old prodigy Jay Bruce. Since the Texas native was selected out of high school with the 12th overall selection in the 2005 amateur entry draft, Bruce has been “The Boss” of minor league pitchers by compiling a career .308/.366/.555 minor league line. In his first action in the big leagues, the 6-3, 205 pounder held his own (.254/.314/.453). That’s pretty darned impressive for a guy in the majors at an age where some players are college juniors. To determine what we can expect from Bruce in 2009 and beyond, let’s take a closer look at his minor league resume.

2005
GCL Reds (Rookie ball, GCL): 122 AB, .270/.331/.500, 9BB%, 25.4K%, .230 ISO
Billings (Rookie ball, Pioneer League): 70 AB, .257/.358/.457, 15.7BB%, 31.4K%, .200 ISO

Right off the bat, Bruce showed the lefty pop that led Baseball America to liken him to a young Larry Walker who possessed the “strength and skill to eventually hit 30-plus homers.” In a small sample size, he showed the ability to drive the ball, though the K rates were a bit high. BA noted that he could occasionally become “antsy” at the dish. Still, as far as debuts go, this was an extremely promising one. Prior to the 2006 season, BA ranked Bruce as the 76th-best prospect in the minors.

2006
Dayton (Low-A, Midwest League): 444 AB, .291/.355/.516, 9BB%, 23.9K%, .225 ISO

In a league that tends to suppress power, Bruce posted a .220+ ISO as a 19-year old. He popped 16 home runs while compiling 63 extra-base hits overall. Suffice it to say, those power projections looked spot-on after his full-season debut. Prior to the 2007 season, Baseball America ranked Bruce as the 14th-best prospect in the minors, again making comparisons to Walker. His walk rate was solid, if unspectacular, and the K rate was a little high, but few teenagers show as much in-game power as Bruce did at such an early stage of development. As BA noted, “he can show more plate discipline, but the Reds will happily live with some strikeouts if Bruce continues to pound the ball.”

2007
Sarasota (High-A, Florida State League): 268 AB, .325/.380/.586, 8.2BB%, 25K%, .261 ISO
Chattanooga (AA, Southern League): 66 AB, .333/.405/.652, 10.8BB%, 30.3K%, .318 ISO
Louisville (AAA, International League): 187 AB, .305/.356/.567, 7.4BB%, 25.7K%, .262 ISO

Talk about a quick rise through the minor leagues. Bruce obliterated the baseball at every stop, hitting a combined 26 homers and 80 extra-base hits (!) between his three stops. His control of the strike zone remained a bit unrefined, as the lofty strikeout rates and moderate walk rates attest, but for a 20 year-old to sprint through the minors and tear the seams off of the ball at every level is mighty impressive. Prior to the ’08 season, Baseball America ranked Bruce as the very best prospect in the game, rating his power as a 65-70 while rating all of his tools as at least a 55 on the 20-80 scouting scale (50 is considered major league average). In other words, BA ranked every aspect of Bruce’s game as above the norm.

2008
Louisville: 184 AB, .364/.403/.630, 6.1BB%, 24.5K%, .266 ISO
Cincinnati (MLB): 413 AB, .254/.314/.453, 7.4 BB% 26.6K%, .199 ISO

After aggressively punishing the International League pitching staff for a while, Bruce was called up to Cincinnati in late May and proceeded to cream everything in sight, posting an absurd 1.575 OPS in 25 PA. He cooled off over the next few months before posting solid numbers in September and early October (.924 OPS in 92 PA). The strikeout rate remains something of an issue (his contact rate with the Reds was a low 71.61%) and he was a bit liberal in terms of swinging at pitches thrown out of the strike zone (30.39 O-Swing%). However, considering Bruce’s lukewarm walk rates in the minors, a 7.4BB% is rather promising for a 21 year-old cutting his teeth in the majors, as is the near-.200 ISO.

Bruce is obviously an extremely valuable long-term property. In keeper leagues, he should be near the top of your list. However, I would caution against going too hog-wild for him in 2009. He’s a very bright young player with star-caliber talent, but he also has some rough edges to smooth out in the plate discipline department. Select Bruce knowing that he has the ability to become a star, but also knowing that he might not quite reach that level this upcoming season.

Free-agent-to-be Andy Pettitte is 36 years old. The man who has spent 11 years of his career in pinstripes is coming off of a 2008 season in which he posted a 4.54 ERA, his highest mark since 1999. Pettitte surrendered 233 hits in 204 innings, or 10.28 per 9 frames. Those numbers suggest that Pettitte has slipped a notch or two, and is in the decline phase of his career. Something declined in the Bronx this past year, but it wasn’t Pettitte: the quality of the defense behind him is the culprit for Andy’s ascending ERA.

In terms of controllable skills, Pettitte has lost almost nothing to father time. He struck out 6.97 batters per nine innings while showing his typically-solid control, issuing 2.43 BB/9. That 2.87 K/BB ratio helped Pettitte post a 3.71 Fielding Independent ERA (FIP ERA). The 0.84 run difference between his actual ERA (4.54) and his FIP ERA is the fifth-largest in baseball among qualified pitchers. The reason for that wide dichotomy is Andy’s Sistine Chapel-high .339 BABIP. When a hitter put the ball in play, those Yankee gloves did a very poor job of converting it into an out. The Bombers ranked 25th in the majors in Defensive Efficiency, which measures the percentage of balls put in play that are converted into outs.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but since Pettitte posted a 1.80 GB/FB ratio in 2008 (thus giving his infield D plenty of chances), let’s start in the infield. From Bill James Online, we can take a look at John Dewan’s Plus/Minus Fielding Data. Dewan’s system rates players based on the number of plays made above/below the number that an average fielder would make. For a more complicated explanation, see Dewan’s site. By position, here are the infield’s plus/minus numbers, with their rank among that position in parentheses:

1B Jason Giambi: -18(34)
2B Robinson Cano: -16(35)
SS Derek Jeter: -12 (31) (blasphemy!)
3B Alex Rodriguez: +2(17)

Only A Rod came in with a solid rating, with Giambi, Cano and Jeter all coming in well below the major league average. Without starting a riot or beating to death a topic that has been widely discussed, it’s virtually impossible to find an objective defensive metric that rates Jeter as anything a poor-fielding major league shortstop. In fact, his -12 showing this past year was actually a major improvement from ’07 (-34). Perhaps there’s some hope of a rebound for Cano, as he posted an excellent +17 mark in 2007 (5th-best among 2B). Giambi, meanwhile, has long been an iron glove at first. But, like Pettitte, he’s a free agent after the Yankees declined his $22M option by buying him out for $5M. Perhaps the good folks in New York who sit along the first base line will no longer have to wear protective equipment to the game to shield against Giambi’s follies, as slick-fielding Mark Teixeira (+24) is a possible replacement.

While Pettitte is more of a groundball-oriented pitcher, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the extreme difficulty that one New York outfielder had as well:

Johnny Damon: +7 in LF(10), -3 in CF
Hideki Matsui: -2 in LF
Xavier Nady: -4 in RF(22), +2 in LF
Brett Gardner: -2 in LF, +6 in CF
Melky Cabrera: +6 in CF(11)
Bobby Abreu: -24 in RF(34)

Abreu (also a free agent) showed precious little range in right field, and it’s not a one year fluke: he rated 32nd among RF in both 2006 and 2007. The soon-to-be-36 year-old remains a solid hitter, but NL teams may want to think twice before offering him a multi-year contract.

If Cano rebounds, Teixeira signs, Abreu moves on and Jeter moves off of shortstop (hey, a guy can dream, can’t he?), the Yankees could improve defensively by a significant margin. However, none of those things are guaranteed, and it’s possible that the club will be sporting little leather once again next season. Pettitte is a long-time Yankee and a former farm product, but he might do his ERA a favor by picking a less defensively-challenged team this winter.

A quick look at the Cincinnati Reds’ 40-man roster reveals a land of opportunity in the outfield. Aside from mega-prospect Jay Bruce (more on him tomorrow), there’s…not much else. Utility-man Ryan Freel endured an injury-plagued season (though at least he still has Farney) and while Jerry Hairston Jr. (splitting time between center field and shortstop) turned in .326/.384/.487 line in 297 PA last year, he is also a 31 year-old with a career .700 OPS.

A lot could happen between now and opening day, be it a free agent signing or a trade. But as it stands right now, home-grown product Chris Dickerson figures to see a significant amount of playing time. A 6-3, 225 pound lefty hitter, Dickerson possesses an interesting blend of patience, speed and a little bit of power. The 26 year-old certainly made the most of his major league debut in 2008, batting .304/.413/.608 in 122 PA, popping 6 homers and drawing 17 walks. Is his Ruthian start a sign of things to come, or just insignificant small-sample mashing?

Selected out of Nevada in the 16th round of the 2003 amateur entry draft, Dickerson has shown good on-base skills in compiling a .260/.363/.415 minor league line. Since reaching AAA Louisville, he has shown a little more pop:

2007: 354 AB, .260/.355/.435
2008: 349 AB, .287/.382/.479

Dickerson could also be of some help in the steals category, as he has been a high-percentage base stealer in 2007 (23 of 28, 82.1%) and 2008 (26 of 33, 78.8%).

Of course, there’s one giant pink elephant in the room: Dickerson’s Kingman-esque strikeout rate. He whiffed a whopping 37% at Louisville in 2007, before cutting that rate to a still-whopping 29.2% in 2008. With the Reds, he K’d 34.3%. While he showed relatively solid plate discipline in Cincinnati (swinging at 24.44% of pitches thrown out of the strike zone), his contact rate was a Custian 69.53%.

Strikeouts do not necessarily keep a player from producing, provided that player has very solid secondary skills (walks and power). Dickerson has one of those, but his minor league track record suggests that his pop is only mid-range. Given his advanced age for a prospect, a high whiff rate and modest pop, Dickerson looks more like a useful fourth outfielder at the major league level than any sort of impact player. Don’t be fooled by his scalding cup of coffee last year: Dickerson can draw a walk and cause a little havoc on the basepaths, but he’s probably not starting material.

Precious little went right for the Colorado Rockies in 2008. On the heels of a campaign in which the club improbably won 20 of 21 games to finish out the regular season and advanced to the World Series, the Rockies suffered multiple injuries and came crashing back to earth, posting a 74-88 Pythagorean record.

One bright spot in an otherwise bleak season was the continued development of right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez. Signed out of the Dominican Republic as a non-drafted free agent in 2001, Jimenez has long adorned prospect lists on the basis of pure stuff; mid-to-upper 90’s heat and occasionally nasty breaking pitches have a way of catching the attention of scouts. While Jimenez showed a propensity to miss bats in the minors (8.81 K/9), he also displayed less-than-stellar control by issuing 4.47 free passes per nine innings.

Ubaldo got a brief cup of coffee with Colorado in 2006 before making it to the big leagues for good in July of 2007, when he was inserted into the starting rotation. Given his performances at AAA Colorado Springs, however, there were reasons to doubt his readiness:

2006: 78.1 IP, 5.06 ERA, 7.35 K/9, 4.94 BB/9
2007: 103 IP, 5.85 ERA, 7.78 K/9, 5.42 BB/9

Granted, Colorado Springs is a tough pitching environment (inflating offensive production between 6-9% from 2005-2007, per Baseball Prospectus 2008), but walking well over 5 batters per nine innings is certainly not the hallmark of a finished product.

Despite the ugly numbers in the high minors, Jimenez actually handled himself quite well. While his control was still rough around the edges (4.06 BB/9) he K’d 7.46/9 while showcasing a fastball that popped the catcher’s mitt at an average speed of 95.8 MPH. In 82 innings of work, Jimenez posted a 4.74 FIP ERA. Considering his home environment and his lukewarm performances at AAA, that qualified as a successful debut.

In his first full year in the rotation in 2008, Ubaldo made 34 starts, lowering his FIP ERA to a tidy 3.83. He struck out a few more batters (7.79 K/9), though he also regressed a bit with his control (4.67 BB/9). Interestingly, Jimenez became much more of a groundball pitcher this past season:

2007: 1.26 GB/FB, 46.4 GB%
2008: 1.94 GB/FB, 54.4 GB%

Perhaps trading some speed for movement, Jimenez threw his fastball a little bit slower (94.9 MPH) in 2008. If Ubaldo can keep up this worm-killing trend in the future, it would bode very well for his career prospects. Clearly, Coors Field is not a venue where one wants to put the ball in the air with any frequency. With fewer balls leaving the infield, Jimenez slashed his HR/9 rate from 1.1 in ’07 to 0.5 in ’08. That number will likely regress somewhat next season (his HR/FB% was a very low 6.9%), but fewer flyballs should mean fewer cheap home runs at Coors.

Ubaldo Jimenez (25 in January) remains somewhat raw, but his combination of solid strikeout rates and groundball tendencies make him an intriguing starter. Armed with mid-90’s heat, an 86 MPH power slider, a 75 MPH curve and an 86 MPH changeup, Jimenez has the repertoire to make hitters’ lives difficult in the NL West. He will likely always walk his fair share of hitters, but if Jimenez can miss bats and keep his infield defense busy, he could develop into a fantasy stalwart.

Quick: match these 2008 pitching stats with the players who authored them:

Pitcher A: 173.2 IP, 3.60 FIP ERA, 8.6 K/9, 3.06 BB/9, 1.70 WPA, 27 years old
Pitcher B: 202.1 IP, 3.56 FIP ERA, 8.14 K/9, 2.49 BB/9, 1.74 WPA, 25 years old

As you can see, these two fellows are nearly dead even in terms of Fielding Independent ERA, with Pitcher A holding a slight edge in K’s and Pitcher B exhibiting sharper control. Both players enjoyed very strong campaigns, but the perception of the two is markedly different. Player A is considered a bondfide ace, and has been the subject of much trade debate. Player B, meanwhile, might not even be recognized by the average fan as the best starting pitcher on his own team.

So, who are these guys? Player A is quasi-ace Jake Peavy. Player B is none other than Royals righty Zack Greinke. If we want to dig a little bit deeper into their respective 2008 seasons, the numbers actually slant a little further toward Greinke’s favor. Using Statcorner’s tRA statistic (which is park and defense neutral, thus negating Peavy’s Petco Park advantage), we find that Peavy turned in a 4.02 tRA (4.77 NL average) and a 116 tRA+ (100 is average), while Greinke managed a 3.74 tRA (4.87 AL average) and a 123 tRA+. In other words, Greinke outperformed the man for whom teams are lining up to surrender their farm systems.

None of this is to criticize Peavy (though his trade value might be slightly less than it seems at first glance). This exercise simply points out just how good Zack Greinke has become. He has essentially transformed from more of a finesse pitcher to a power arm capable of ripping through the best lineups in the DH league.

Greinke’s first two years in the big leagues were solid (his 5.80 ERA in ’05 was the result of a fluky .343 BABIP), but his K rates were not those of a fledging ace:

2004: 6.21 K/9, 1.61 BB/9, 4.64 XFIP
2005: 5.61 K/9, 2.61 BB/9, 4.94 XFIP

(for those of you wondering, XFIP is a fielding independent stat that “normalizes” home run rates. HR/fly ball rates tend to fluctuate, so this takes out some of the “noise” from the pitcher’s line and just examines strikeouts, walks, and uses an average home/flyball rate.)

Following a 2006 season in which Greinke dealt with some personal issues (spending the great majority of the season at AA), he re-emerged in 2007 as a vastly different type of pitcher. While his average fastball velocity was a mild 89.8 MPH in 2005, he threw his heat an average of 94 MPH in 2007. He threw his cheese slightly softer in ’08 (93.3 MPH), but that’s still one hefty increase in speed. And, as we can see from Josh Kalk’s pitch F/X blog, Greinke’s fastball is anything but “true”: it has above-average vertical movement and plenty of tailing action in on the hands of a right-handed batter. With that increased speed, Greinke’s pedestrian K rate climbed to 7.82 in 2007 before hitting a career-high 8.14 this past season.

Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention Greinke’s dastardly secondary pitches as well. When he’s not firing darts with his fastball, he can utilize a hard 85 MPH slider or a soft 74 MPH curveball to buckle hitters’ knees. Still not impressed? He can also break out an 82 MPH changeup with fading and dropping action.

By utilizing John Walsh’s work from The Hardball Times and Josh Kalk’s pitch data, we can compare Greinke’s vertical and horizontal movement on his pitches to that of the average pitcher:

(X is horizontal movement. A negative X number means that the pitch is moving in toward a right-handed hitter, while a positive X means that the pitch is moving away from a righty hitter (in to a lefty). Z is vertical movement- the lower the Z number, the more the pitch “drops” in the strike zone.)

Fastball
Greinke: -5.29X, 10.61Z
Average: -6.2X, 8.9Z

Slider
Greinke: 4.28X, 0.63Z
Average: 0.7X, 3.7Z

Curveball
Greinke: 7.42X, -3.29Z
Average: 5.2X, -3.3Z

Changeup
Greinke: -8.52X, 4.95Z
Average: -7.4X, 6.0Z

Greinke has a four-pitch mix, and literally all four could be considered plus offerings considering their above-average movement. His curveball and slider both generate a ridiculous amount of horizontal break, while his changeup drops over 5 inches more than his fastball while also tailing away an additional 3.2 inches. And, as if he didn’t have enough going for him, Zack upped his groundball rate from a very low 32.1% in 2007 to 42.7% in 2008. Fewer fly balls means fewer opportunities for the home run bug to bite him.

While other starting pitchers may come with a higher degree of name recognition, few are better than Zack Greinke. Given his youth, power arsenal and positive statistical trends, there’s no reason not to pick this guy early on draft day.

When Delmon Young was selected 1st overall in the 2003 amateur entry draft, scouts drooled over his impactful bat. A 6-3, 205 pound right-handed hitter, Young elicited comparisons to a youthful Albert Belle. As a precocious prospect, Young compiled an excellent minor league resume, batting a combined .317/.363/.517 in three years while rocketing through the Tampa Bay farm system. Sure, you would like to a few more walks, but those numbers are first-rate considering that Young was several years younger than his peers. Young reached the majors late in the 2006 season as a 20 year-old, posting an aggressive-but-impressive .317/.336/.476.

Since that point, Young has experienced some growing pains. As a 21 year-old in 2007, he managed a .288/.316/.408 line, with a minuscule walk rate (3.9 BB%) and a rather tame .119 ISO. It must be mentioned that it is a rather Herculean feat for a 21 year-old to keep his head above water in the majors, as Young did. Still, Delmon’s approach was greener than grass, as he swung at a startling 41.33% of pitches thrown out of the strike zone. Among qualified batters, only Fan Graphs whipping boy Tony Pena Jr. and notorious bad-ball hitter Vladimir Guerrero had a higher O-Swing%. Also, Young hit a groundball 46.3% of the time, far more than one would expect from a corner outfielder known for possessing lightning in his bat.

Along with Jason Pridie and Brendan Harris, Young was traded to the Minnesota Twins last offseason in exchange for Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett and Eduardo Morlan. While Garza posted a solid 1.81 WPA/LI for the AL champion Rays, Young (-1.25 WPA/LI) posted another tepid line in 2008:

.290/.336/.405, 5.7 BB%, .115 ISO

Young’s execrable plate discipline improved by a very slight margin, as he swung at “only” 39.92% of pitches thrown out of the strike zone (4th-worst in the majors..hey, it’s a start). However, his power remained nonexistent, and his already-high groundball rate skyrocketed from 46.3% to 55.2%. Delmon’s groundball rate was the 6th-highest among qualified batters. A quick look at the top batters in GB% shows the likes of Ichiro Suzuki, Michael Bourn, Jacoby Ellsbury and Willy Taveras. In other words, speed players capable of beating out grounders for a base hit, guys who hit groundballs by design. As a purported power bat, Young sticks out like a sore thumb.

While it’s not at all surprising that Young’s plate discipline remains raw, it is a bit disconcerting that he was nearly outslugged by Nick Punto this past season. Whether it be a coaching issue (the Twins are viewed as a team that preaches a “contact-first” approach) or simply the normal growing pains associated with a very young player adjusting to competition at the highest level, Young remains more promise than production at this point. For a guy expected to put a charge in the ball, chopping grounders into the dirt as often as Ichiro and Ellsbury is certainly not advisable.

Not to sound like a broken record, but Young’s age must be taken into account when assessing his production. He will be only 23 years old in 2009, an age where most prospects are just seeing their first big-league action. Via Baseball-Reference, we find that Carl Yastrzemski and Roberto Clemente rank among Delmon’s most comparable players through age 22. To show just how wide of a range of outcomes are possible for his career at this point, Jose Guillen (a former top prospect who never lost his hacking style) also ranks among his 10 most comparable players.

Delmon Young has been something of a disappointment and needs to stop playing a slap-hitter’s brand of baseball, but it would be foolish to consider him a bust at this point. The truth is, there’s a wildly divergent range of scenarios for Young’s career path. It’s possible that his patience never develops and he remains a disappointment, but it’s also quite possible that he re-discovers his power stroke, fine-tunes his control of the zone and establishes himself as a valuable commodity. Given that he has several years of development time remaining, Young must be kept on the fantasy radar screen.

The Kansas City Royals and GM Dayton Moore ostensibly filled a hole this past week, picking up slugging first baseman Mike Jacobs from the Florida Marlins in exchange for string-bean righty Leo Nunez. I suppose that when your everyday first baseman has been Ross Gload (-1.27 WPA/LI), just about anyone starts looking like an attractive alternative. And, superficially, Jacobs looks like quite an upgrade. 32 home runs…93 RBI..what’s not too like? Well, quite a bit, when you get right down to it. Here are some of the reasons to avoid Mike Jacobs on draft day:

He’s allergic to walks: Here are Jacobs’ OBP’s in his three years as a regular: .325, .319, .299. A sub-.300 OBP is terrible for anyone, but it’s downright criminal from a first baseman whose entire value is derived from his bat. Already 28, Jacobs’ discipline does not figure to improve much. In fact, he’s actually becoming more of a hacker as he ages. Here are his outside swing percentages (O-Swing%) over the past three seasons:

2006: 25%
2007: 29.98%
2008: 33.99%

While some guys with a high-contact skill set can get away with chasing bad balls (think Vladimir Guerrero), Jacobs is not one of those players. Which brings us to our second point..

Increasing K rate, lowering contact rate: Jacob’s strikeout rates from ’06 to ’08: 22.4%, 23.7%, 24.9%. His contact rate is also on a three-year decline:

2006: 75.81%
2007: 75.36%
2008: 73.88%

That 2008 contact number rates as the 10th-worst in the majors among qualified batters. While many of the players toward the bottom of that list have been productive (for example, Adam Dunn and Jack Cust), Jacobs does not have the walk rate to make up for the low batting average like Dunn and Cust do.

He needs to be platooned: While Jacobs has at least managed a decent .269/.329/.521 line versus righties, he has had all sorts of issues with lefties. Southpaws have silenced him to the tune of .235/.275/.414 in his career. How many fantasy teams can afford a platoon first baseman?

While Jacobs may seem like an upgrade for the Royals at first glance, he has plenty of blemishes in his game that put a significant dent in his value. Add in the fact that Jacobs is due for a pay hike through arbitration, and this deal looks downright odd for Kansas City.

Perhaps the biggest loser in this deal is fellow Royals first baseman Kila Kaaihue. The lefty batter clubbed 37 home runs and drew 104 walks between AA Northwest Arkansas and AAA Omaha in 2008, but his role now figures to be minimal. Which I guess begs the question, did they really need to go outside of the organization to find Gload’s replacement?

Mike Jacobs: walk-averse, strikeout-prone, and helpless versus left-handers. Don’t be like Dayton: avoid Mike Jacobs on draft day (I’m David Golebiewski, and I approve this message).

Very rarely do teams consummate a prospect-for-prospect swap. It seems as though GMs favor the “devil you know” over the “devil you don’t” approach, preferring to keep the young players whom they have invested time, energy and money developing.

However, the Chicago White Sox and the Texas Rangers made just such a deal in December of 2006. In a pitching prospect challenge trade, the Rangers sent former 1st rounder John Danks to the South Side as part of a deal that shipped Brandon McCarthy to Arlington. While the move was viewed as relatively even at the time, Danks has emerged as an ace-quality starter, while McCarthy has battled finger and shoulder maladies. After an inconsistent rookie season, Danks made tremendous strides in 2008:

2007: -1.62 WPA/LI, 5.50 ERA
2008: 2.99 WPA/LI, 3.32 ERA

Danks lowered his ERA by well over 2 runs this past season. Will that dramatic improvement hold? In a word, yes.

Danks upped his K rate slightly, from 7.06 in ’07 to 7.34 in ’08. He also slashed his walk rate significantly, from 3.5 BB/9 to 2.63 BB/9. However, the biggest difference in Danks’ numbers came in the home run department:

2007: 1.81 HR/9, 13.8 HR/FB, 34.8 GB%
2008: 0.69 HR/9, 7.4 HR/FB, 42.8 GB%

An extreme flyball pitcher in ’07, Danks generated grounders at a much higher clip in 2008. Consequently, his home run rate dropped from untenably high to comfortably below average. He may give some of that gain back next season (his HR/FB rate was pretty low; it tends to stick around 11% for pitchers) but he should be able to limit the longball damage and avoid another 2007 fireworks spectacle, given his more even GB/FB distribution. Given the homer-happy tendencies of U.S. Cellular Field, this is no small consideration.

With a few more strikeouts, as well as significantly less walks and homers, Danks cut his FIP ERA from 5.54 in 2007 all the way down to 3.44 in 2008. To what can we attribute this dramatic turnaround? A look at Danks’ pitch data reveals the addition of a new weapon:

(FB=fastball, SL=Slider, CT=Cutter, CB=Curveball, CH=Changeup XX= unidentified. The first number is the % that the pitch was thrown, the number in parentheses is the velocity)

2007: FB 61%(89.5), SL 0.6%(81), CB 17.4%(76.9), CH 21%(81.7), XX 2.7%
2008: FB 52.2%(91.3), SL 4.7%(83.9), CT 16.4%(87.1), CB 6.4%(77) CH 20.3%(82.8), XX 4.7%

In addition to gaining nearly 2 MPH on his fastball, Danks added a cutter to his repertoire. A look at Josh Kalk’s pitch F/X data reveals why this offering is so important to Danks’ development: the cutter gives him a pitch to work away from lefties and in on the hands of right-handers. Essentially, the offering opens up a whole new quadrant of the strike zone previously unavailable to him.

Danks is no flash in the pan. Every statistical and scouting measure available points to his breakout 2008 campaign as legitimate. Don’t hesitate to invest heavily in this southpaw: he’s here to stay among the elite arms in the American League.

Oakland A’s submariner Brad Ziegler took a rather circuitous route to major league success. Originally a 20th round selection by Philadelphia Phillies in the 2003 amateur entry draft, Ziegler was considered a finesse righty with little shot of ever reaching the major leagues, much less setting records once he got there. After tossing only 6 innings for the Phillies organization in 2003, Ziegler was released. A 23 year-old not considered worthy of a High-A roster spot, Ziegler toiled in the Independent League in 2004 before the Oakland Athletics (who drafted him in 2002 but didn’t sign him) offered him a minor league contract.

Ziegler would slowly work his way up the major league ladder, showing good peripherals (7.44 K/9, 1.84 BB/9) but also displaying the hittability of his ordinary stuff (9.29 H/9). Following a 2006 season in which he performed adequately at AA but was lit up at AAA, Ziegler was approached by A’s management about a career change: they wanted to know if he would drop down and become a submarine-style pitcher. As a 26 year-old with long odds of making it as a conventional hurler, Ziegler accepted the challenge and has posted Nintendo-level numbers ever since:

2007 (AA): 23.2 IP, 1.14 ERA, 4.50 K/BB, 60 GB%
2007 (AAA): 54.2 IP, 2.96 ERA, 3.14 K/BB, 63 GB%

The silly numbers continued at Sacramento in 2008. He posted a microscopic 0.37 ERA in 24.1 IP, generating a grounder 66% of the time. And, upon a promotion to the big leagues, Ziegler would set a major league record for scoreless innings to start a career, passing George McQuillan’s previous mark of 25. Brad’s streak would run all the way up to 39 innings before it was finally broken. In 59.2 major league frames, Ziegler posted a 1.06 ERA while generating grounders at a 64.7% clip. So, will Ziegler’s knuckle-scraping goodness continue in 2009, or is he due to fall back down to earth?

Not to use a cop-out, but the answer is some of both. Ziegler had some legitimately good things going for him, such as the very high rate of worm-killers and a subsequently low home run rate (0.3 per nine innings). However, as you dig a little deeper into his numbers, it becomes apparent that the man who had to fight tooth-and-nail to make it to the majors and suffered a fractured skull in the process was actually quite lucky in 2008.

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that a guy posting a 1.06 ERA had some bounces go his way, but Ziegler’s 3.72 FIP ERA was leaps and bounds above his actual ERA. In fact, the difference between his Fielding Independent ERA and actual ERA (2.66 runs) was by far the largest gap among relievers throwing at least 40 innings (ironically, the guy with the second biggest split is fellow submariner and former Athletic Chad Bradford). Ziegler also benefitted from an extremely low BABIP (.246). While the A’s flashed the leather in 2008 (ranking 4th in team Defensive Efficiency) and convert more balls put in play into outs than most clubs, that BABIP figure is still due for some regression to the mean.

Perhaps the biggest reason to expect Ziegler’s ERA to climb quite a bit is his otherworldly strand rate this past season. He left 92.3% of runners on base (!), also the highest mark among relievers with at least 40 IP. To put that number in perspective, relief demi-god Mariano Rivera has a career strand rate of 79.5%. When that extraordinarily high strand rate comes down, his ERA will go up.

Brad Ziegler is an amazing story and a very fun pitcher to watch, but his numbers point to a good deal of regression occurring in 2009. Add in the usual problems that submarine pitchers have with opposite-handed batters (he gave up a .370 OBP to LHP) and his low K rate (4.53), and it becomes clear that Ziegler is more of a solid relief specialist than a closer-in-waiting.

To be honest, I had figured that Diamondbacks centerfielder Chris B. Young would be entrenched as a star-caliber player by this point in his career. A 6-2, 200 pounder with a unique blend of patience, power and athleticism, Young was originally a 16th round steal by the Chicago White Sox in the 2001 amateur entry draft. On the heels of a gargantuan season for AA Birmingham in 2005 (.277/.377/.545, 26 HR in 554 PA), Young was shipped to the D-Backs in a deal that netted Chicago the equally enigmatic Javier Vazquez. The one question that pundits had about Young was his lofty strikeout totals, but he appeared to be making some gains on that front as he climbed the minor league ladder:

2005 (AA): 12.7 BB%, 23.3 K%
2006 (AAA): 11.5 BB%, 17.7 K%

Following a .276/.359/.532 campaign at AAA Tucson that included the reduction in his whiffs, Young made a brief cameo with Arizona and looked poised to post some outstanding numbers as an everyday player in 2007.

However, Young’s transition to the majors did not go as smoothly as expected. His solid plate discipline eroded, as he managed just a 7% walk rate to go along with a lofty 24.8 K%. While he displayed a good deal of pop (.230 ISO), Young’s .237/.295/.467 showing earned him a -0.05 WPA/LI.

2008 brought him some gains in the patience department, as he upped his walk rate to 9%. However, that sinister K rate rose to 26.4% and he posted a .248/.315/.443 line, with a slightly better WPA/LI of 0.24. Young’s 77.47% contact rate placed him in the lower third tier among qualified batters, though it was actually an improvement over his 76.66% rate in 2007. Young also got jammed with alarming frequency, as his 16.8 IF/FB% was the fifth-highest mark among qualified batters. So, what gives?

If a player possesses good secondary skills (walks and power), strikeouts do not preclude success. However, a K rate in the vicinity of Young’s does put a significant cap on his batting average, putting more stress on his ability to draw free passes and pop extra base hits; if you’re only going to manage a .230 average, you better be able to draw walks by the bushel to compensate (lest you post execrable OBP’s like Young has to this point). It does appear that Young made some gains in this department, as he lowered his Outside Swing Percentage (O-Swing%) from 22.87 in 2007 to 20.43% in 2008.

The question regarding Young at this point is, will he draw enough free passes to offset the handicap of a .230-ish batting average? Given his track record, it seems reasonable that Young will draw a few more walks as he matures, but the high K rate is here to stay given his contact rate and his issues with breaking balls. Still, he has the secondary skills and speed (27 SB in ’07, 14 in ’08) to be a fantasy asset. Only 25 heading into next season, Young still possesses the skills to guide him down a Mike Cameron-type career path if he can be a little more selective at the plate.