July 13, 2012–The Baseball Bloggers Alliance today named Hardball Talk lead blogger Craig Calcaterra as the winner of the 2012 Joe Posnanski Award, honoring the top internet writer of the year.  Besides being the lead voice at Hardball Talk, the baseball blog of NBCSports, Calcaterra can also be found interacting with his readers via his Twitter account.

The Writer of the Year Award was created by the BBA to honor those writers who, beyond being exceptionally great at their craft, have taken to the internet in a full and vigorous fashion.  Voters were instructed to take into account not only the writing abilities of the nominees but also their online presense, whether via blog or other media, as well as how they interact with their followers and fans.

“It seems only appropriate to honor Craig Calcaterra, as he could be seen as ‘living the dream’ for many bloggers,” said outgoing BBA president Daniel Shoptaw.  “Calcaterra quit lawyering, began blogging and quickly rose to a place of prominence.  What blogger wouldn’t want to follow in those footsteps?”

Voters were allowed to vote for three of the five nominees, casting a first, second and third place ballot.  Those ballots were tabulated based on a 5-3-1 point scale.

Calcaterra received 276 points, which included 32 first-place votes from the 119 ballots cast.  Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports was runner-up with 245 points and Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus third with 209 points.  Dave Cameron of FanGraphs (208) and Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (194) rounded out the ballot.

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally.  You can follow the BBA on Facebook and Twitter or contact them at baseballbloggersalliance@gmail.com

The Cardinals dropped a heartbreaker on Wednesday night, losing to Cincinnati 9-8 in thirteen innings. Games that high scoring and that long have multiple story lines, plot twists, and drama. This one could be summarized in two sentences. The good: St Louis fought back from an early 8-0 hole to tie it in the last of the ninth. The bad: Jake Westbrook got shelled, surrendering a double, a triple, and three home runs in 4 1/3 innings. Let’s focus on Jake.

Westbrook has had a rough first half. His 5.34 ERA is ranked 104th out of 111 ‘qualified’ pitchers per Fangraphs (although his xFIP is 4.06, which is only 88th). Last season he rebounded from a nearly similar xFIP with Cleveland (4.24) to post the best xFIP of his career with St Louis (3.51). Last year nine of his 12 Cardinal starts could be classified as quality ones (6 IP or more, 3 ER or less). This year only 5 of 15 starts could be described that way. What is driving his struggles, and can he rebound?

Looking at his 2010 data with the Cardinals, and comparing it with his 2011 to date, a couple of things jump out. His velocity on his three main pitches – fastball, slider, cutter – are roughly the same as last year. He’s still throwing his fastball about 60% of the time. His usage pattern for his off-speed pitches has changed. He’s throwing the slider about half the time (16.4% last year, 9.8% this), and his cutter 4X as much (14.8%, up from 4.7% a year ago). His pitch selection more closely resembles what he did while an Indian in 2010 (14.9% slider, 12.9% cutter), when he posted a 4.65 ERA and that 4.24 xFIP.

Next, his swinging strike percentage is the lowest of his career. Over all of last season hitters swung and came up empty 7.1% of the time, and it was virtually the same in both leagues (7.2% AL, 6.9% NL). This year – 6.1% of all swings are in vain. Additionally, and perhaps related, hitters are making more contact on his pitches located outside of the strike zone. Last year they made contact on 70% of those pitches; this year it’s 75%. These two statistics support the belief he is not locating as well this year as he did last season. The most obvious symptom of bad location is lots of base runners, and Westbrook has had that in spades. His current WHIP is his worst since 2001. His walk rates are up and his strikeouts are down. Opposing hitters are batting .320 on balls in play, their best mark off Jake since 2006.

Although his location has been off this year, his HR’s allowed have not shown a real spike. Last year with the Cardinals only 9.4% of the fly balls he allowed left the yard. This year it is worse, 13.2%, but with a caveat. This year’s percentage is much more in line with his performance in prior seasons. In 2007 it was 10.2%, 2008 16.7%, and in his half of 2010 with Cleveland it was 12.7%. So although he’s not getting as many swinging strikes, and opposing hitters are making more contact on pitches outside the strike zone, and he’s constantly pitching with guys on base, he’s not surrendering home runs at an abnormally high rate.

Given all that data, we can make one reasonably easy recommendation and one hard one for a better second half. Easy: he should use the All-Star break to re-evaluate how often he throws his slider and cutter, and adjust them to his second-half 2010 levels. Hard: he needs to re-discover his command and locate better both in and out of the strike zone. Better location will drive his base runner numbers down and help him get deeper into ballgames with better results. Otherwise his second half in 2011 will look maddingly like his first.

The Royals surprising start thus far has been built on middle of the order production, defense and shutdown performances from a very young bullpen. As expected, the weak link has been the starting pitching. Royals starters are sporting a collective 5.17 ERA, worst in the American League. That the team with the worst starting ERA has jumped out to a 17-14 record is a minor miracle. It is also the major factor preventing many fans from fully buying into this team as a contender just yet.

photo by Minda Haas

I have delved deep into the numbers to see how the Royals rotation stacks up within the AL Central. The results probably will not be encouraging to the Royals faithful, though there is some reason to hope for minor improvement.

My ranking of the rotations (through May 4):

The White Sox, Indians, and Tigers clearly have the superior rotations to this point, with the Twins and Royals lagging far behind. But here is one reason for (slight) optimism I found:

While the starters have so far allowed runs at a terrible rate, their xFIP suggests some of that is bad luck and the staff ERA has the potential to decrease significantly. The bad news is that their 4.30 xFIP is still only good for fourth in the division.

Here is how that ERA/xFIP discrepancy is distributed among the Royals starters:

Those ugly ERAs from Davies, Francis, and Hochevar are three of the worst five among ALC starters, but there is significant room for improvement if their xFIPs are any indication. Those three have the most “unlucky” ERA to xFIP ratio among ALC starters. The biggest reason I see for this is the high rate of fly balls that are leaving the park: 13% of fly balls have gone for home runs against KC starters, highest in the majors, and a number that should dip closer to the norm of 9.5-10%.

But even with room to expect improvement, the starting staff as now made up will continue to be the achilles’ heel of the 2011 Royals and temper dreams of contending for the division crown. If the team continues overcoming the starting rotation and can hang around .500 or better, the Royals front office will face critical decisions about promoting one or more of the arms from the farm. People who know about these things suggest Mike Montgomery and Danny Duffy are close and could have an impact. The early promotion of Eric Hosmer suggests one or more of those pitchers could follow him to KC soon. If the offense, defense and bullpen can carry on at current levels, a shot in the arm to the rotation could really start to make this team interesting.

For more nerd kicks, a look at the AL Central pitchers by their average game score (through May 4):

You may follow Aaron Stilley on the Tweeties if you are into that kind of thing.

It was a wild and crazy opening week at Kauffman Stadium full of extra innings, lead changes, walk-offs, meltdowns and best of all, a 4-2 record for the Royals. Here is a look at some of the biggest plays from each game based on win probability added (WPA) (numbers all from the indispensable Fangraphs):

March 31 • Angels 4 Royals 2

The opener did not feature any of the dramatic swings that the next five contests did. The key moment of the game came when the Royals threatened to come back in the bottom of the eighth after Melky Cabrera, Billy Butler and Kila Ka’aihue walked the bases drunk with just one out. They were down 2-4 but had raised their win expectancy (WE) to 38%. Jeff Francoeur stepped to the plate but struck out, which dropped the Royals WE down to 23%. Alcides Escobar was up next with a chance to play hero, but flew out instead, and the Royals chances fell all the way down to 8%.

(WPA is a descriptive or “story” stat, meaning it describes what happened without necessarily reflecting a player’s true talent. Still, it is worth noting that Escobar had the worst WPA in the majors last season and has jumped out to the worst WPA for the Royals so far. Hopefully some timely hits will start falling in for him. The good news is he has looked outstanding with the glove.)

April 1 • Royals 2 Angels 1

The start of the four-game winning streak, and first of three walk-off wins on the week. Not surprisingly, Kila’s 9th inning bomb was the play of the game, boosting KC’s WE from 64% to a cool 100%.

April 2 • Royals 5 Angels 4

The Royals came-back came in the eighth inning this time with a couple of unlikely names doing the damage with the bat. With two outs and two on, the Royals were down 3-4, and had just a 31% WE. Light-hitting Matt Treanor knocked Billy Butler in with a single to tie it, and also-light-hitting Chris Getz gave the good guys the lead for good with a single of his own. KC’s WE shot all the way up to 86%.

April 3 • Royals 5 Angels 4

More late-innings madness, this time in both the ninth and 13th innings. Down by two in the bottom of the ninth, things were not looking good until suddenly the bases were loaded; Wilson Betemit had the biggest hit for the Royals all week (judged by WPA) when he doubled in two runs. Tying the game resulted in a mammoth 51% swing in WE in the Royals favor. The teams locked horns for four more innings before Treanor continued an amazing first week as a Royal with a walk-off ding dong. Even though it won the game, it had a smaller impact on WE (39%) than Betemit’s game-tying double.

April 5 • Royals 7 White Sox 6

How about another extra-inning, walk-off win? Once again it was the hit to tie the game that had the biggest effect on WE, rather than the walk-off hit itself. The tying runs came on a mammoth home-run from Bam Bam Butler, boosting the Royals WE from 20% to 56%. Cabrera’s single in the 12th wasn’t bad either, moving the WE from 70% to game over.

April 6 • White Sox 10 Royals 7

insaness

The magic ran out in another crazy game. It looked like the Royals were going to win in non-dramatic fashion for a change after jumping out to a 5-0 lead and handing a 6-3 lead to Joakim Soria in the ninth. Soria got two quick ground-outs, and the game was basically over. The Royals WE was 99.6%. The White Sox had flat-lined and were moving towards the light. Three singles and a walk later, the White Sox were within one run, but the Royals WE was still 83%. Next came the biggest WPA play of the week when Carlos Quentin doubled in the tying and go-ahead runs, swinging the WE 66% in the White Sox’s favor. It appeared the Royals might come back from the collapse when Ka’aihue doubled in the tying run in the bottom of the ninth, moving the WE 42% back in KC’s favor. The Royals couldn’t score. Then in the 11th, the Royals got their WE all the way back up to 83%. In a repeat of opening day, Jeff Francoeur and Alcides Escobar squashed a rally with back-to-back outs. It was not to be this time, and the Sox finally finished the job in the 13th inning.

Top five plays by WPA during opening week:

-66%: April 6 • 9th • Carlos Quentin go-ahead 2B

+51%: April 3 • 9th • Wilson Betemit tying 2B

+42%: April 6 • 9th • Kila Ka’aihue tying 2B

+39%: April 3 • 13th • Matt Treanor walk-off HR

+36%: April 5 • 8th • Billy Butler tying HR

On Thursday the Cardinals officially announced Adam Wainwright will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the 2011 season. Is the loss of Wainwright the death knell for St Louis’ 2011 season before the first spring training game is played?

Not necessarily, although the road to the playoffs just went unpaved and became much more mountainous. Wainwright was #4 in pitcher value according to Baseball Reference, #7 per Fangraphs, in 2010. The Cardinals will not be able to replace him with one man, because men possessing similar skills are seldom available via trade in spring training. So the remaining starters will have to pick some of the slack, and the Cardinals will probably both utilize several players in the #5 starter slot and skip that spot when the schedule allows it.

Many a Cardinal fan has descended into a foggy place of low expectations – the ‘Wainwright Daze’, let’s call it – since news of his elbow trouble broke. One Adam Wainwright, however, does not a team make. So use these tidbits to help ease your pain and clear your mind.

1. Lance Berkman will hit fifth. Lance had a down year in 2010 after having knee surgery, but even so his season OPS+ of 114 (combined with Houston and the Yankees) beat every Cardinal RF not named Ryan Ludwick. Berkman is a year further from surgery and from all indications he is hungry in 2011. He will help the offense.
2. David Freese is back. Freese is healthy to start the season, and we all saw what he is capable of in 2010 when healthy. Freese will play more than 70 games at 3B, even if the Cardinals have to place him in stasis and cover his capsule in bubble-wrap between games to do it. He will help both the offense and defense.
3. Molina and Schumaker are due. Offensively they will leave 2010 behind and return to their career norms.
4. Bullpen remains a strength. Even if Kyle McClellan shifts into the rotation, stalwarts Ryan Franklin, Mitchell Boggs, and Jason Motte return to anchor the back of the bullpen. Trever Miller is once again the LOOGY, and he has been competent there for 2 years. Mix in Fernando Salas and P.J. Walters, and this group could rival the 2004 ‘pen in terms of efficiency.
5. Jamie Garcia and Colby Rasmus are still under 25. Garcia finished 3rd in the ROY voting and will be better now that he has a full major league season under his belt. Rasmus slugged .859 despite only hitting 7 HR after July 1; look for him to finish stronger in 2011. And, they both will be on the club (barring trade) until after the 2014 season.

Still don’t feel better? Then simply remember this one thing:

• Albert Pujols still wears Birds on the Bat. No team with the Game’s Best Player is out of contention from the get-go. In AP’s 10 seasons with the Cardinals, the team has made the playoffs six times, and been in the thick of the pennant chase in two other seasons (2003, 2010). No way losing Wainwright makes this a sub-.500 team, something that has only happened in 2007 with AP on the roster.

I can see clearly now the Daze is gone…

photo by Minda Haas

The biggest highlight of this off-season for the Royals was signing Billy Butler to a four-year deal with a club option for a fifth year. The combination of Butler’s precocious hitting over the last two seasons and the knowledge that the Royals will control him during what could be his prime years of age 25—29 has naturally lead to much speculation about what kind of damage Bam Bam might do with the bat in the coming years. (How has “Bam Bam” not caught on more as a nickname?) Immediately after Butler signed the contract, several excellent, stats-based projection posts went up on the interwebs, all taking a different angle:

• Jeff Parker at Royally Speaking broke down hitters who had an OPS+ of 115—120 between ages 21—24 (Billy being at 118) and how they performed between ages 25—29. As Parker wrote in the title of his post, Royals fans will like some of the comparables and will not like others: he found a range from Carlos Baerga—92 OPS+ from 25—29—all the way up to Carl Yastrzemski who smashed at a 154 OPS+ clip from 25—29.
• Matt Klaassen at Fangraphs took a look at Butler’s “Future Power” potential. Some observers knock Butler for not hitting enough round-trippers, while others predict that his propensity for hitting doubles indicates a possible home run surge as he moves into his prime years. Klaassen took a look at Butler’s similar hitters via Baseball-Reference and ZiPS, and found that Billy still may be a couple of years away from a power spike, if one is to come.
• Scott McKinney at Royals Review went deep down the rabbit hole, projecting Butler’s future value compared to the cost of his contract to the Royals. The main takeaway for me is that even if Butler does not improve significantly and shifts to a full-time DH, this still looks like a great contract for the Royals (especially good news with 1B prospect Eric Hosmer waiting in the wings).

So in the interest of being both untimely and redundant, I would like to throw my hat in the ring with a slightly different angle to project what could be expected of Billy in the coming five seasons. Like Klaassen, I’m going to use the list of ten most similar batters to Butler through age 24 as found on Baseball-Reference, but look at a wide range of hitting numbers. You can click here for the full explanations of the similarity scores developed by Bill James, but these are the stats taken into account: games played, at bats, runs, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, RBI, walks, strikeouts, batting average and slugging percentage. (It drives me crazy that RBI is used as a criteria but OBP is not…c‘est la vie.) There is also a positional adjustment, so players who spent their early years playing first base like Butler will rate higher. Here are Billy’s comparables through age 24:

1. John Olerud
2. Kent Hrbek
3. Nick Markakis
4. Chet Lemon
5. Carlos May
6. Delmon Young
7. Carl Yastrzemski
8. Ellis Valentine
9. Tony Horton
10. Keith Hernandez

Just as Parker found, there are examples here to inspire both concern and optimism. The absolute worst case is the sad story of Tony Horton, who played his age 25 season in misery before attempting suicide and never returning to the game. Only considering play on the field, Carlos May probably represents the worst case: After what must have looked like a break-out age 24 year, May was a pedestrian hitter for the next five years. On the other end of the spectrum is the one Hall-of Famer on the list, Yastrzemski, he of the 154 OPS+ between ages 25—29. I think it is safe to expect Billy to fall somewhere in between those two extremes. To find a middle-of-the-road baseline of what we might expect from Billy, I averaged the age 25—29 seasons of the above players (Markakis is the same age and does not enter into the averages, and some players, like Horton and Delmon Young, do not enter into the later years). Here is what those players averaged by season, with Billy’s actual numbers to date shown at the top of the chart:

The numbers look a little low compared to what most expect of Billy, which serves as a good reminder that Butler may experience some dreaded “regression to the mean.” But it is reasonable to expect Butler to outperform those numbers, partly because he has already matched or outperformed them over the last two seasons, and because just watching the guy tells you he has the ability to keep raking for a long time to come.

The trend in the power numbers echoes what Klaassen found: Butler’s power might see a bump when he is 27—29, which correlate to the 2013—15 seasons—hopefully the same years the current crop of heralded prospects are turning into beasts. Makes that club option for his age 29 year look that much better.

Looking to the past shows that near-Yastrzemski-like numbers are unlikely, though it is encouraging that a hitter like Yastrzemski is even a part of the conversation. It is also exciting that Olerud, the most comparable hitter through age 24, hit .304/.407/.481 between ages 25—29. But averaging the performance of a larger sampling of comparable hitters serves as a note of caution. Royals fans with grand expectations may want to temper them a bit. It also shows observers should be patient with Butler over the next two years if he is not living up to lofty expectations—his best years during this contract could be the last three.

Ryan Theriot is projected to be the Cardinals Opening Day shortstop, and Skip Schumaker the second baseman. Many have expressed anxiousness at how well they will play defensively. How will Theriot and Schumaker compare to recent keystone combinations?

Fangraphs started keeping defensive data in 2002, so let’s look at Cardinal combinations starting with there. Take a walk down memory lane and remind yourself of these duos. When multiple players played the position in a season, I chose the guy who started the most games there.

• 2002 – Fernando Vina and Edgar Renteria
• 2003 – Bo Hart and Renteria
• 2004 – Tony Womack and Renteria
• 2005 – Mark Grudzielanek and David Eckstein
• 2006 – Aaron Miles and Eckstein (yep, Miles; 471 PA)
• 2007 – Adam Kennedy and Eckstein
• 2008 – Kennedy and Cesar Izturis
• 2009 – Skip Schumaker and Brendan Ryan
• 2010 – Schumaker and Ryan

Interesting that 2009-2010 marked the first time since 2000-2002 the same two players started the majority of games at second and short.

Using UZR/150 from Fangraphs, here is how each individual performed.

• 2002: Vina -0.8, Renteria 5.8
• 2003: Hart 7.7, Renteria 6.1
• 2004: Womack 2.7, Renteria 0.6
• 2005: Grudzielanek 9.2, Eckstein -6.9
• 2006: Miles -5.4, Eckstein 1.7
• 2007: Kennedy -1.8, Eckstein -13.6
• 2008: Kennedy 18.0, Izturis 8.6
• 2009: Schumaker -8.5, Ryan 9.6
• 2010: Schumaker -17.2, Ryan 12.1

We see a ton of variation in these statistics, even among those with multiple seasons at the same position. Ryan was the best defensive shortstop of this group, Renteria was very good, Eckstein was ultimately not very good during his time in St Louis. On the other side of the bag, Kennedy was above average defensively for most of his career (despite the wide statistical variation seen in St Louis), and Schumaker is well below average.

For the one-season guys, starting at second base, Vina and Womack were in their primes before advanced defensive metrics came to be, making it hard to generalize this one season as indicative of their careers. Hart only played part of one more season (2004), again making it hard to determine if 2003 is an accurate reflection of his talent. Grudzielanek had some very good defensive seasons with the Royals after leaving St Louis, and his 2005 score is right in line with those years. Miles is poor defensively and has seen his innings in the field at second base decline every season since 2006. Izturis has long been considered an excellent defensive shortstop and his career numbers back that up.

Back to the 2011 pairing. Virtually everyone who has weighed in on the subject projects Theriot as below average defensively at short. However, his pre-2010 numbers were pretty good by UZR/150: 4.4 in 2007, 2.3 in 2008, 4.1 in 2009. Only last season did he show a marked drop-off (-18.1), but he only played 246 innings at short (in comparison to at least 850 in each of the previous 3 seasons). Theriot will probably not play to the level of Renteria, Ryan, or Izturis, but he almost certainly won’t be as big a liability at second as Eckstein was in 2004 and 2006. Schumaker is a below-average second baseman and will continue to be so.

Theriot will be a step back from Ryan, but is not as weak a defender as Eckstein was. There won’t be a superhighway up the middle for ground balls to take into the outfield. This combination will not be as stone-fingered as the 2006 and 2007 Cardinal versions were. In fact, given the trend of having one position post a negative or average UZR/150 and the other a positive, 2011 should be just like 7 of the last 9 seasons in St Louis up the middle.