Suffice it to say, new Pirates third baseman Andy LaRoche has not gotten his major league career off to a rousing start. Better known as “the guy who went to Pittsburgh in the Bay/Ramirez deal”, LaRoche was nonetheless considered one of the most promising prospects in a fertile Dodgers farm system.

You wouldn’t know it by examining his major league line, however, as Adam’s little brother put together a .166/.252/.256 slash line in 252 PA split between the Bucs and the Dodgers in 2008. LaRoche’s -1.82 WPA/LI put him in the sordid company of out-machines such as Michael Bourn, Omar Vizquel and Tony Pena Jr. So, who is the “real” Andy LaRoche: the guy with a rock-solid .294/.380/.517 minor league line, or the Andy Marte clone who has stumbled to a career .184/.288/.272 showing in 316 big league at-bats?

A 39th-round selection out of Grayson County Community College (TX) in the 2003 draft, LaRoche really burst onto the prospect scene during the 2005 season. As a 21 year-old in the High-A Florida State League, Andy put up a .333/.380/.651 line in 249 AB, popping 21 home runs. Vero Beach (his home ballpark) is known as a hitter’s park, but that’s still a pretty tasty showing for a young guy in advanced A-Ball. Bumped up to AA Jacksonville for the second half of the year, LaRoche compiled a respectable .273/.367/.445 line in 227 AB, with 9 home runs. Andy showed solid patience, upping his walk rate from 7% at Vero Beach to 12% with Jacksonville, though his K rate did increase (from 14% to 20.5%). Considering that Jacksonville plays as more of a pitcher-friendly venue, LaRoche’s second-half performance was solid.

2006 would be another banner year, as Andy showed excellent plate discipline in a return engagement to Jacksonville in the Southern League. In 230 AB, he posted a .309/.419/.483 line, with 9 dingers and more walks (41) than strikeouts (32). LaRoche’s walk rate climbed to a healthy 14.9%, while his K rate dipped to 11.6%. His power (.174 ISO) was mid-range, but the overall picture was bright: a player with refined control of the zone and doubles power. He would be promoted to AAA Las Vegas for the second half of the ’06 season, where LaRoche would compile a .322/.400/.550 line that conjured up memories of his 2005 slugfest, as he popped 10 homers in 202 AB. The SLG% can be looked at skeptically, however, as Las Vegas plays like a launching pad.

Andy would once again crush the ball in Vegas in 2007 (.309/.399/.589, 18 HR in 265 AB), showing the discipline (12.5 BB%) and low K rates (13.5 K%) that he had become known for. His first taste of the majors with the Dodgers would go at little less smoothly, as he posted a .226/.365/.312 line in 93 AB.

All of which brings us to 2008, a season in which LaRoche seemingly fell out of favor with Dodgers management. He put up a .293/.452/.439 line in 123 AB at Las Vegas, before he basically rode the pine for LA. As mentioned, LaRoche was shipped to the ‘burgh in a splashy deadline deal and proceeded to play at a level that made Pirates fans long for the days of Jose Bautista.

The first thing that needs to be mentioned here is LaRoche’s incredibly unlucky, break 100 mirrors/see a black cat/walk under a ladder .177 BABIP. That’s an absurdly low number, and even if we note that LaRoche hit line-drives at a below-average 15.6% clip, we would still expect his BABIP to come in at .276. If we adjust for that discrepancy, Andy’s ghoulish .166/.252/.256 line adjusts to .265/.351/.355. Yes, that’s still mild, but it doesn’t look quite so poor. And, given Andy’s 17-18% line-drive rate at the AA and AAA levels, we would expect his LD% to move upward in the future.

Another item that must be pointed out is LaRoche’s propensity to pull the ball in the majors. Andy’s minor league numbers paint the picture of a patient hitter with a high contact rate, a guy willing to spray the ball all over the field. Perhaps LaRoche still thinks he’s in Las Vegas, however, as he hit a groundball to the right side of the infield 37.2% of the time in 2008. LaRoche hit a grounder 49.5% of the time overall. Among third baseman with at least 200 PA, only former Pirates prospect-turned journeyman Jose Castillo put the ground on the ball more often. While Andy has certainly experienced some poor luck thus far, this is one area where he definitely needs improvement. You’re not in Vegas anymore, Andy: do what got you to the majors in the first place and spray the ball around the diamond.

While Andy LaRoche’s major league stats make fantasy owners want to avert their eyes, it is too early to write him off. That scary big league line is at least partially the result of terrible luck on balls put in play, and his minor league dossier reflects a player possessing excellent strike-zone control and doubles power. If Andy gets back to using the whole field, he could be a bargain. Those willing to look past a small sample of at-bats in the majors could be rewarded with a nifty under-the-radar player at the hot corner.

Yesterday, Peter talked about a Marlins starter headed toward acedom (if he’s not there already) in Ricky Nolasco. Today, I’m going to examine a Florida hurler who is headed in the exact opposite direction: left-hander Scott Olsen.

A few years back, Olsen looked like an organizational pillar. In his first full year in the big leagues (2006), he struck out 8.27 batters per nine innings. Sure, he needed some refinement (3.74 BB/9), but young lefties equipped with a hopping 91 MPH fastball, a good slider and a promising changeup do not grow on trees. Olsen posted a 4.33 FIP ERA as a 22 year-old, with seemingly plenty of room for growth.

Whatever the reason might be, Olsen’s 2007 campaign surely did not turn out the way that many people expected. He was hammered for a 5.81 ERA, and while that was partially the result of an abnormally high .350 BABIP, his controllable skills were not much better. Olsen’s FIP ERA soared to 5.33 in ’07, a full run higher than his breakout rookie campaign. After punching out over 8 batters per nine innings in 2006, Olsen’s K rate fell to 6.78 and his walk rate soared to 4.33 per nine innings. After having thrown his fastball 62.4 percent in 2006, he threw the heat over 70 percent of the time in ’07 while neglecting his changeup (he threw it 19.2% in ’06, but just 8.5% in ’07). His fastball also showed a slight dip in velocity, from 90.9 MPH to 90.1 MPH.

In 2008, Olsen went back to throwing his changeup more often, but the results were not much better. Sure, his 4.20 ERA seems like a dramatic improvement over his 5.81 showing the previous year, but that “improvement” is built upon a house of cards. Olsen was the beneficiary of a very low .266 BABIP, and his FIP ERA was still an ugly 5.02. His strikeout rate fell precipitously (again), all the way down to 5.04 whiffs per nine innings. He did exhibit better control (3.08 BB/9), but it wasn’t enough to offset the dramatic downturn in his K rate. The most startling aspect of Olsen’s 2008 campaign was his total lack of velocity: his fastball averaged just 87.8 MPH, with his slider and change also coming in slower.

Since his stellar rookie season, Olsen has lost 3 MPH off of his fastball. With that loss of zip, Olsen’s strikeout rate has fallen off of a cliff, as he’s gone from a pitcher capable of dominating lineups to a guy who struck out fewer batters per nine innings than Jarrod Washburn and Darrell Rasner. Be it a physical problem or something coaching related (he’s had a few run-ins with teammates and was suspended in 2007), the current version of Olsen is not nearly the fledging ace that we saw during the 2006 season. The ERA sure looks better, but his improvement in 2008 was illusory. Until Olsen proves that he’s capable of missing bats once again, he’s someone that you want to avoid investing in.

By traditional standards of measuring a pitcher’s effectiveness, Red Sox righty Daisuke Matsuzaka had a stellar 2008 season. With an 18-3 record and a shiny 2.90 ERA, one would be led to believe that he was one of the very best starters in the majors. When one digs a little deeper, however, there are plenty of trends that point to regression for Matsuzaka in 2009. Here are a few of the factors working against Dice-K:

BABIP: Matsuzaka got plenty lucky on balls put in play in 2008, with a .267 BABIP. BABIP for a pitcher tends to hover around .300, and in fact Dice-K posted a .306 BABIP in his first state-side campaign in 2007. Even if we allow for Matsuzaka to post a slightly lower-than-average BABIP because of the quality of Boston’s defense (the Red Sox posted the 5th-best Defensive Efficiency in baseball), he’s still due for regression to the mean.

Walk rate: As any Red Sox fan can attest, Matsuzaka has a maddening tendency to nibble at the corners. Dice K’s walk rate went from a mediocre 3.52/9 in 2007 to a bloated 5.05/9 in 2008. Among starters with at least 100 innings pitched, only Tom Gorzelanny, Fausto Carmona and Barry Zito walked more batters per nine innings. For the record, none of those three guys had an ERA under 5.15.

Home run rate : Matsuzaka’s home run rate fell from 1.10/9 in 2007 to 0.64/9 in 2008. However, there are no real trends to support that drop, as Dice-K generated about the same number of groundballs (about 38 percent), flyballs (43 percent) and line-drives (18 percent) in both seasons. The only difference was a dip in his home run/fly ball rate, from 10% in 2007 to 6.1% in 2008. HR/FB rates tend to normalize around 11 percent for pitchers, so Matsuzaka is due for regression to the mean here as well. As a flyball pitcher, Dice-K is pretty unlikely to give up just 12 long balls ever again.

Left on base%: Dice-K stranded 80.6% of baserunners in 2008, well above the league average and his 2007 showing (73.9%). If that number comes back to earth, so will his ERA.

All of these auspicious numbers led to a large dichotomy between Matsuzaka’s actual ERA (2.90) and his Fielding Independent ERA (4.03). That’s the third-largest difference among starters tossing at least 100 frames (Armando Galarraga is first, Justin Duchscherer is second).

None of this is to say that Daisuke Matsuzaka is a lousy pitcher. He ranked among the top 20 starters in strikeout rate and, as his Fangraphs page attests, Matsuzaka has a cornucopia of pitches at his disposal. However, if you’re expecting another sub-3 ERA from Dice-K, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Don’t let those W-L numbers fool you: Matsuzaka is good, but not that good.

Coming into the 2008 season, Mike Aviles was not on the radar screen of many fans or analysts. A short (5-9), stocky (205 pounds) 27 year-old, Aviles was seen as more of an organizational solider than a future starter at the major league level. Signed for a mere $1,000 out of division two Concordia in the 7th round of the 2003 draft, Aviles had spent the prior two seasons putting up relatively mild numbers at AAA Omaha, posting a .679 OPS in 2006 and a .796 mark in 2007. Left off the 40-man roster last winter and ranked as the 29th-best prospect in the system by Baseball America, Aviles figured to spend another season toiling in the PCL.

However, two factors combined to make Aviles’ 2008 campaign a memorable one: 1.) he got off to a torrid start in his third stint at Omaha (.336/.369/.631 in 214 AB) and 2.) he had the good fortune of not being Tony Pena Jr. (Pena’s RC/27 of 1.18 was the lowest among all players with at least 200 PA- that’s right, a team of Tony Pena’s would somehow manage to score 1 run per game). Aviles more than improved upon the low standards of the man he replaced, posting a .325/.354/.480 line. His WPA/LI of 1.28 was the fourth-best among shortstops with at least 400 PA.

So, what can be expected of Mike Aviles going forward? On the positive side, Aviles has shown a propensity to put the bat on the ball, striking out no more than 11% of the time at the AAA level and whiffing 13.8% in the majors. Combined with decent pop for a middle infielder (.155 ISO), Aviles has some things going for him offensively.

However, there is one very large red flag waving over Aviles: the man does not like to walk. His BB%’s over the past three years at Omaha were 5.6, 5.3, and 4.9. With the Royals, he drew a free pass just 4.1% of the time. If anything, he’s going backward in this regard. Aviles swung at 35.5 percent of pitches thrown out of the strike zone in 2008. Among shortstops with 200 or more PA, only noted hackers Angel Berroa, Clint Barmes and our old friend Pena Jr. swung at more bad balls.

As a player who relies heavily upon his batting average to succeed, Aviles carries a higher degree of risk. His BABIP was .359 last season. Given his line drive rate (20.2%), we would expect his BABIP to be about .322 (LD% + .120 is the formula for expected BABIP). If we remove those 37 extra points of average from Aviles’ line, he has a less shiny .299/.332/.443. Batting average is prone to variation more than most other offensive stats, and it’s not uncommon to see a player with a .300 skillset like Aviles hit 20 or 30 points below that mark. For example, take Pirates second baseman Freddy Sanchez, another batting average-fueled middle infielder. A productive player when he hit .344 in 2006 and .304 in 2007, Sanchez was a fantasy killer when he hit just .271 in 2008.

Mike Aviles is someone to keep on the radar screen at a position where offense comes at a premium, but keep in mind that he needs those extra ducksnorts to fall in there to be productive. A .330-hitting Aviles is a quality player, but a .280-hitting Aviles isn’t near as attractive.