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(The Los Angeles Dodgers host the St. Louis Cardinals, Sunday at 8 ET on ESPN)

The post-Albert Pujols era is in its first season in St. Louis, and right now the Cardinals do not appear to miss the second-most prolific home run hitter in franchise history.

In fact, the Cardinals are in first place in the National League Central thanks in part to some savvy offseason moves.

Carlos Beltran and Rafael Furcal have been two of the three most effective free agent signings. Beltran’s 1.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is tied with Kelly Johnson for the highest this season among 2012 free agent signings. Furcal is third with a 1.8 WAR.

In fact, Beltran and Furcal are part of an interesting 2012 trend: rejuvenation of older players once thought to be done.

• Carlos Beltran (35) Leads NL in home runs (hasn’t hit 30 HR since 2007)
• Rafael Furcal (34) .351 BA ranks 4th in NL (.231 BA in 2011; didn’t play 100 games in either of last 2 seasons)
• Derek Jeter (37) .355 BA ranks 3rd in AL (hit .282 in previous 2 seasons)
• David Ortiz (35) 3rd in AL in OPS and 4th in BA (hit .257 from 2008-10)
• Paul Konerko (36) .367 BA is 2nd in AL (hit .240 in 2008)

Beltran has 13 home runs through 40 games, the most he’s ever hit in his team’s first 40 games. (Before 2012, the most HR Beltran hit in his team’s first 40 games was 11 in 2004.) In addition to leading the National League in home runs, Beltran ranks fifth in OPS (1.036).

He’s also two stolen bases from becoming the eighth player in major-league history with 300 HR and 300 stolen bases. With a .861 career OPS, he’d join Willie Mays, Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds as the only 300-300 players with an .850 OPS.

As good as Beltran has been, Furcal has been just as impressive. He’s hitting .400 this month, which is the fourth-highest NL average in May behind David Wright (.436), Andrew McCutchen (.420) and Carlos Ruiz (.411) Furcal also is one of the best NL hitters with two strikes. His .293 average with two strikes is third in the National League.

One part of Furcal’s success is that he isn’t so pull happy. Last season, Furcal pulled 42 percent of all balls that he put in play. In 2012, that percentage is down to 34 percent.

Furcal and Beltran are also two of the most prolific active switch hitters. Beltran ranks third among active players with 1,956 hits and Furcal is sixth with 1,739.

Two of this season’s most surprising starters face each other on Friday in Los Angeles, as the St. Louis Cardinals' Lance Lynn (6-1, 1.81) meets the Los Angeles Dodgers' Ted Lilly (5-0, 2.11).

Both Lynn and Lilly are getting great results on their fastballs, and Lynn’s fastball is generating a lot of swings and misses in the zone (see chart).

Opponents are hitting a major-league low .150 against Lynn’s fastball, and .162 against Lilly’s heater.

As good as Lilly's fastball has been, his changeup has been even better. Opponents are 1-for-27 (.037) on at-bats ending in Lilly’s changeup.

If Lilly earns the win, he will be the first Dodgers starter to begin the season 6-0 since Kaz Ishii in 2002. Before that it was Orel Hershiser in 1988.

Verlander Feasts on National League Teams
It's no surprise that Justin Verlander has the highest miss percent this season on fastball in the strike zone at 26 percent. That's one reason he's dominated in Interleague play, which starts on Friday.

Verlander, who will face the Pittsburgh Pirates, is 15-2 with a 2.94 ERA in 20 interleague starts. That’s the best win percentage in interleague play among pitchers with at least eight decisions.

Time to Panic About Albert Pujols Adrian Gonzalez?
So Albert Pujols has gone deep in back-to-back games. With three on the season, Pujols has one more than the Boston Red Sox' Adrian Gonzalez.

Gonzalez last homered on April 17. That’s 106 at-bats without a home run. In that span, 280 players have gone deep at least once.

Typically, Gonzalez' power stroke is going the other way. Last year, 12 of his 27 home runs were hit to the opposite field. In 2012, he doesn’t have one.

One reason for that is Gonzalez isn’t hitting outside pitches for power. Last year he hit .310 with a .518 slug percentage on outside pitches. This season? His average is .163 and slug percentage is .204.

The Los Angeles Dodgers placed Matt Kemp on the 15-day disabled list with a strained left hamstring after Monday night's game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Kemp's absence will certainly be felt offensively.

Kemp saw his MLB-leading active streak of 399 games played come to an end Monday, and while his production decreased this month, his early-season performance was impressive. His 12 home runs by April 30th were the fifth-most in MLB history, and according to Elias, was just the third player since 1920 (when RBI became official) to hit .400 with 10+ HR and 25+ RBI in April (excluding any March games).

Without Kemp, the Dodgers also lose one of the best high-ball hitters in baseball. Kemp is 11-for-21 (.524) against high pitches in 2012, tied with Ryan Sweeney for the best batting average on such pitches in baseball entering Tuesday.

For all of these reasons and more, Kemp has been one of the most valuable position players in baseball over the last two seasons. Using the Baseball Reference metric “Wins Above Replacement,” Kemp is second in the National League and fourth in Major League Baseball in WAR since the start of the 2011 season. Only Dustin Pedroia, Ben Zobrist and Ryan Braun have a higher WAR than Kemp in that span.

Kemp, however, did see his production trail off drastically in May. During this month, Kemp was batting just .212 in 11 games and had not gone deep. The difference has primarily come against the fastball. During April, Kemp batted .465 against the heater with nine home runs. In May, that average dipped to .250. His strikeout percentage against the fastball also jumped significantly, increasing from 11.3 percent in April to 28.6 percent in May.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, 247 players have hit a home run this season.

Albert Pujols is not one of them.

Pujols’ 0 HR in 92 at-bats this season is the third-longest homerless streak to start a season by a player with at least 400 career HR, according to Elias. Only Eddie Murray (109 in 1996) and Ken Griffey Jr. (98 in 2010) had longer streaks.

Pujols was supposed to be the talk of southern California, not the Los Angeles Dodgers Matt Kemp, who leads the National League in all three Triple Crown categories.

Kemp (.425, 12 HR, 25 RBI) had a season-high four RBI on April 14 against the Padres. That’s as many RBI as Pujols has this season.

Let’s go a little deeper.

Kemp struck out 159 times last season, 101 more than Pujols. Yet, a month into the season, Pujols is the hitter who has seen more two-strike counts. Kemp has thrived in such situations. Pujols has not (see chart).

Let’s go even deeper on Pujols’ two-strike issues.

Pujols has 98 plate appearances this season; 53 of those plate appearances have ended in two-strike counts (55 percent). From 2009-11, 41 percent of Pujols’ plate appearances went to two strikes.

What led to this?

Early in at-bats, Pujols is fouling off more pitches and taking more strikes. He is putting the ball in play on less than 40 percent of swings in early counts; usually, he puts about half of his swings early in an at-bat into play.

There are other areas in which the difference between Kemp and Pujols is distinct.

• Kemp has been able to sneak the ball through holes, getting hits on 40 percent of his groundballs. Pujols is hitting right into infield shifts, with just three hits on 30 groundballs.

• Kemp is crushing breaking pitches (11-26, 2 HR, 5 RBI) and Pujols is making no impact against them (4-26, 0 XBH, 1 RBI).

Normally the right-handed Pujols would be crushing left-handed pitchers. Last year he hit nearly .300 and slugged over .600 against southpaws, but in April this year he is just 4-for-25 and has a slugging percentage of .240.

From 2001-11, Pujols entered the month of May with at least five home runs. So how many HR can be expected from Pujols the rest of the season?

According to Elias, seven players have finished with 40 home runs after not going deep once in April. The most was 54 by Babe Ruth in 1920. The most recent was Alex Rodriguez, who hit 42 HR in 1999.

After narrowly missing out on the Triple Crown last season, Matt Kemp is off to a fast start in 2012.

Through 13 games, Kemp is hitting .451 with seven home runs and 18 runs batted in. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he is the third player since RBI became official in 1920 to reach each of those thresholds in his team’s first 13 games. The others were Larry Walker for the Colorado Rockies in 1997 and Willie Mays for the San Francisco Giants in 1964.

Kemp has shown tremendous power to the opposite field in the early going, in large part because of how he is handling pitches on the outside part of the plate.

As shown in the heat maps at the top of the article, Kemp’s ability to drive pitches on the outer portion of the plate has markedly improved since last season. In 2011, he had six home runs in 207 at-bats that ended on outside pitches. Through the first two weeks this season, he has three home runs in 22 at-bats ending on such pitches.

This isn’t the case of Kemp doing better against outside pitches as a function of doing better against everything. His numbers against inside pitches are slightly improved from last year, with his slugging percentage up from .672 to .727. Against outside pitches, his slugging percentage has more than doubled from .362 to .727.

Kemp hit his fifth opposite-field home run of the season in Thursday’s win against the Milwaukee Brewers. Entering Thursday evening’s games, Derek Jeter is the only other player in the majors with more than two opposite-field homers this year. Kemp hit eight home runs to the opposite field all last season.

The Los Angeles Dodgers enter tonight's action against the Milwaukee Brewers (8:10 ET) with the best record in baseball at 9-1. It's the franchise's best start since 1981, a year the Dodgers won the World Series. Much of the success has been thanks to the production of Matt Kemp, who is so far producing some huge numbers.

According to Elias, Kemp joined Willie Mays, Lou Brock, and Dante Bichette as the only players with at least six homers, 16 RBI and a .450 batting average through a team’s first 10 games since RBI became an official stat in 1920.

The secret behind his lofty statistics is his ability to feast on the fastball, as he's batting .550 with an OPS of 1.959 against the pitch this season. Pitchers have also had little success against Kemp with two strikes. In such situations, Kemp has a .412 batting average, including a .667 average against the heater (four hits in six at-bats).

An additional measurement of how Kemp is atypical has been on fly balls. The typical major leaguer hits a home run once for every nine to 10 fly balls, but Kemp's first nine fly balls have resulted in six home runs.

While Kemp is carrying the offense, closer Javy Guerra is an anchor in the bullpen; he leads the majors with five saves and has yet to allow a run.

What's been his key to success? Keeping the ball on the ground. Guerra has a groundball percentage of 66.7 this season (eight of 12 balls in play), seventh highest among relievers, and he's allowed just one hit off a groundball.

Starter Chad Billingsley (scheduled tonight) has also been impressive in two starts this year, allowing just a single earned run in over 14 innings of work. He also has 15 strikeouts compared to one walk.

Stats & Info insights into this morning's top sports stories

1. FLYERS SCORING IN BUNCHES: The Philadelphia Flyers continue to dominate the series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, winning Game 3 by a score of 8-4 to take a 3-0 series lead. Philadelphia has scored 20 goals in the series with 16 coming in the last two games. FROM ELIAS: The last team to score at least 16 goals in consecutive Stanley Cup Playoff games is Wayne Gretzky's Los Angeles Kings in 1993, who scored 18 goals (nine in each) in consecutive games against the Calgary Flames. The Flyers had never scored 16 in consecutive Stanley Cup Playoff games and the Penguins had never allowed 16 in consecutive Stanley Cup Playoff games.

2. KEMP AND DODGERS CONTINUE HOT START: Matt Kemp hit his sixth homerun of the season as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres 5-4. The Dodgers are 9-1 for the first time since 1981 (won the World Series that year) and Kemp has been a big reason why. He’s just the third player to hit six homeruns in the Dodgers first 10 games. FROM ELIAS: Kemp joins Willie Mays, Lou Brock, and Dante Bichette as the only players with at least six homeruns, 16 RBI and a .450 batting average through a team’s first 10 games since RBI became an official stat in 1920.

3. LAKERS RIDE BIG MEN TO WIN OVER DALLAS: Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol each had a 20-point, 10-rebound game to lead the Lakers to an overtime win over the Mavericks. The Lakers are 4-1 without Kobe Bryant this season and swept the season-series with Dallas, winning all four games. FROM ELIAS: The Lakers are the first team since the 2002-03 Nets to sweep a regular-season series after being swept by the same team in the postseason the previous year.

4. PRESIDENTS' TROPHY WINNERS 1 LOSS FROM ELIMINATION: The Los Angeles Kings beat the top-seeded Vancouver Canucks 1-0 in Game 3 to take a 3-0 series lead. Since the NHL went to a best-of-seven format in the quarterfinals in the 1986-87 season, it’s the second time that an 8-seed has a 3-0 series lead over a 1-seed. The last time happened in 1993 when the Blues swept the top-seeded Chicago Blackhawks. As for the Canucks: They are the first team to finish the regular season with the best record and lose their first three games of its quarterfinal series according to Elias.

5. PANTHERS END PLAYOFF DROUGHT: FROM ELIAS: The Florida Panthers ended the longest playoff win drought in NHL history with their 4–2 victory against the New Jersey Devils on Sunday night. It was Florida’s first postseason win in two days short of 15 years, since a 3–0 victory over the Rangers on April 17, 1997 in the opening game of a first-round series. The Panthers obliterated the old NHL record for the longest stretch with a playoff win, which was just under 12 years by the Detroit Red Wings, between wins on April 26, 1966 and April 11, 1978.

6. ALL HE DOES IS WIN: Ivan Nova allowed four runs in six innings to get the win as the Yankees beat the Angels. FROM ELIAS: Nova has won his last 14 decisions, tying Whitey Ford and two others for the second-longest streak in New York Yankees history. Nova trails only Roger Clemens, who won 16 decisions in a row in 2001.

Tuesday marked the first major league starts for former bullpen stalwarts Neftali Feliz and Daniel Bard. Both were successful in the bullpen, but only one handled the transition well in his debut.

Feliz was facing off with a familiar foe as the Texas Rangers hosted the Seattle Mariners. Entering the game, the Mariners had not recorded a hit in 48 at-bats against Feliz. Justin Smoak finally broke the hitless drought with two outs in the fourth inning.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 58 at-bats before allowing a hit is the longest streak to start a career against one team in the expansion era (since 1961). The record was previously held by Billy Wagner, who held the Pittsburgh Pirates hitless in their first 48 at-bats from 1996 to 2001.

Feliz was able to handle the move to the bullpen by mixing up his pitches. As a reliever, he threw a fastball on 80 percent of his pitches. The first time through the Seattle order on Tuesday, he threw heat on 69 percent of his pitches. After that, he relied on his fastball only 39 percent of the time.

For the game, Feliz mixed in sliders on 26 percent of his pitches and changeups on 23 percent. Mariners hitters were 1-for-8 in at-bats ending with a changeup, including two strikeouts.

Bard wasn’t as fortunate in his transition to the rotation. He allowed five earned runs without recording an out in the sixth inning as the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Boston Red Sox 7-3.

In three years as a reliever, he threw fastballs 71 percent of the time and sliders 21 percent of the time. The key to his success out of the bullpen was his slider. Opponents missed nearly half the times they swung at the pitch. He was able to coax swings on sliders outside the zone nearly a third of the time.

On Tuesday, he threw the slider 35 percent of the time and was just as successful. The Blue Jays missed on nine of their 14 swings against the slider and four of Bard’s six strikeouts came on the pitch. But they were able to tee off on his fastball, getting eight hits in 17 at-bats ending with the pitch.

Bard was unable to establish a third pitch during the game. In the first four innings, he threw only four changeups and all of them missed the strike zone. He found the zone with three of six changeups to his last five batters and induced a groundout by Adam Lind.

Quick hits
Freddy Garcia tied the American League record with five wild pitches in his start against the Baltimore Orioles.

Jayson Werth recorded his eighth career four-hit game, his first since June 27, 2009.

The Detroit Tigers are the last undefeated team in the American League, despite not getting a decision from their starters.

The Atlanta Braves snapped a nine-game losing streak dating to last season with a win at the Houston Astros.

Andre Ethier celebrated his 30th birthday by hitting the game-winning home run in the bottom of the eighth, his 11th career go-ahead home run in the eighth inning or later.

Dan Braunstein contributed to this post.

Wondering why those who are in the top 10 were picked in those spots? Here are some numbers to know about each of the top 10 players in the ESPN 500.

Albert Pujols –- Pujols is in very elite company. He’s one of six players to hit 400 career home runs and bat at least .325. The other five: Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig and Stan Musial. Pujols’ 445 home runs through his first 11 seasons are the most all-time through a player’s initial 11 years in the majors.

Roy Halladay -- Halladay has 170 wins and a 2.97 ERA, averaging almost 210 innings per year over the last 10 seasons. The last pitcher to average 17 wins and 200 innings a season, over a 10-season span, and do so with a sub-3.00 ERA was Greg Maddux from 1995 to 2004.

Miguel Cabrera -- Cabrera has led the American League in at least two significant offensive categories in three of the last four seasons. Cabrera’s .977 OPS over the last six seasons trails only Albert Pujols in that span.

Justin Verlander -– Verlander won both the AL MVP and Cy Young awards in 2011, the first pitcher to win both since Oakland’s Dennis Eckersley in 1992, and the first starter to do so since Roger Clemens in 1986. Over the last three seasons, Verlander leads the majors in wins (61) and strikeouts (738) and is third in opponents BA (.221).

Felix Hernandez -- Hernandez and Roy Halladay are the only two pitchers to average 240 innings per season over the last three seasons, and his ERA, when adjusted for ballpark, ranks second to Halladay in that span as well.

Ryan Braun –- Braun has led all major league outfielders in batting average (.318), RBI (328), runs (323) and doubles (122) over the last three seasons. The 2007 NL Rookie the Year and 2011 NL MVP has hit 161 HR in his first five seasons, the 10th-most by a player in his first five seasons.

Clayton Kershaw –- Kershaw is second to Roy Halladay among National League starters in both wins and ERA, but leads in strikeouts and opponent batting average over the last two seasons.

Troy Tulowitzki -- Over the last three seasons, Tulowitzki has 89 home runs, 34 more than any other player whose primary position is shortstop. His OPS+ of 134 also tops all shortstops in that span. Tulowitzki also ranks third among shortstops over the last three seasons in Defensive Runs Saved.

Tim Lincecum –- Since making his debut in May of 2007, Lincecum has struck out at least 10 batters in a game 31 times, the most in the majors over that span. His 977 strikeouts over the last four years is tops among all pitchers.

Robinson Cano -- Cano has led major-league second baseman in both slugging percentage and OPS in each of the last two seasons. This season, he will likely break the Yankees record for career home runs as a second baseman, a mark currently held by Tony Lazzeri (147- eight more than Cano) that has stood for more than half a century.

If the ESPN 500 were based on pedigree and potential, Chad Billingsley (No. 173) wouldn’t have three digits next to his name. A first-round pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2003, Billingsley made his lone All-Star appearance in 2009, and has posted ERAs above four in two of the last three seasons.

He endured his worst statistical season last year. His 2011 ERA, WHIP, walk rate, strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio were each his worst since becoming a full-time starter in 2008.

What went wrong for Billingsley, causing this once-hyped prospect to be ranked No. 173 among baseball’s 500 best players?

Billingsley struck out nearly one-quarter of the batters he faced in 2008 -- a rate that put him among the 10 best starters -- but that number fell in each of the last three seasons and last year was at just 18 percent, on par with the average major-leaguer.

A diminished slider appears to be one of the key factors related to his declining strikeout rate. His strikeouts with the pitch were cut in half over the last two seasons and the number of swings-and-misses on the pitch also fell by nearly 50 percent.

His inability to find the strike zone with his slider really hurt him last year. In 2010, Billingsley effectively located the pitch near the edge of the strike zone, netting him called strikes on more than one-quarter of his pitches taken by the batter.

He threw his slider for strikes two-thirds of the time two seasons ago, slightly above the major-league average of 63 percent. But last year that rate plummeted to 55 percent, and fewer than one in six sliders taken were called strikes.

Batters adjusted to Billingsley’s lack of command last year and sat on the pitch, waiting for a hanging slider in their wheelhouse to send out of the park. Billingsley yielded three home runs off sliders in 2011 after allowing none in 2010.

A perfect example of this came Aug. 10 against the Philadelphia Phillies. Billingsley threw nine sliders that day, but just two found the strike zone. One of those that did proved to be costly, igniting a Phillies rally from six runs down in a game that ended in a 9-8 defeat for the Dodgers.

In the fourth inning, with the Dodgers leading 6-0 and a man on first, Hunter Pence sent a 2-2 slider thrown over the middle of the plate 434 feet over the center field wall. Just two pitches earlier, Pence had laid off a two-strike slider that wasn’t close to the plate.

In 2012, Billingsley will enter the first year of a 3-year, $35 million contract signed last spring. Despite Billingsley’s mediocre 2011, there is optimism in Dodgers camp that he is poised for a breakout year.

According to a late February report on the Dodgers blog at ESPNLA.com, Billingsley is working on a change in his mechanics this spring to become more consistent in his delivery.

If this mechanical adjustment is real and yields the results that Billingsley and Dodgers fans hope for, he could find himself much higher on the ESPN 500 list come next year.

As the saying goes, a team can never have enough pitching. Specific to the Kansas City Royals, it’s relief pitching. The team came to an agreement with former Los Angeles Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton on a 1-year, $4 million deal earlier this week. No team in baseball has the collection of power arms in the bullpen that the Royals have assembled and if Broxton can return to the form that made him arguably the best reliever in the game, the team could be looking at its best bullpen in 20 years.

In 2009, Broxton established himself as quite possibly the best reliever in the National League. He posted a 2.61 ERA that actually belied how effective he was, as his Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) mark was 1.97, the best in the National League among relievers with at least 50 innings pitched. His 2.8 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) also ranked 1st among relievers. From 2006 to 2009, working both as a middle reliever and closer, Broxton compiled 398 strikeouts in 303 1/3 innings pitched, culminating in 114 strikeouts in 76 innings in 2009.

His performance has rapidly deteriorated since that point, however. Everything about Broxton’s performance has been headed in the wrong direction – his strikeout rate has dropped from 30.1 percent to 23.2 to 18.2 from 2009 to 2011, while his walk rate has jumped from 14.0 percent to 18.2 over the same span. The rate at which he was surrendering line drives also spiked, going from 16.1 percent in 2009 to more than double that in 2011 – 32.6. In fact, among pitchers with at least 10 innings pitched, that line drive rate was the 3rd-worst in baseball.

Clearly, the Royals are buying low on Broxton in hopes he’ll return to his dominant form of 2009. Part of what made Broxton so effective was his average fastball velocity, which sat at 97.6 in 2009 before dropping to 95.3 and 94.0 the last two seasons. If he can regain his previous form, he’ll fit right in with a Royals bullpen that featured some of the hardest-throwing arms in the big leagues. Among AL relievers who threw at least 200 pitches in 2011, the Royals had 4 of the top 18 according to average fastball velocity – Jeremy Jeffress (3rd, 96.8), Blake Wood (8th, 95.5), Aaron Crow (17th, 94.9) and Greg Holland (18th, 94.9).

That group does not even include established closer Joakim Soria or diminutive lefty Tim Collins, who ranked 5th among AL left-handed relivers in average fastball velocity in 2011 at 92.3. A vast majority of these arms have been acquired under the regime of GM Dayton Moore – Holland in the 2007 draft, Crow in the 2009 draft, Jeffress in the Zack Greinke trade with the Milwaukee Brewers and Collins in a 2010 trade with the Atlanta Braves.

It is this collection of high-upside, hard-throwing bullpen arms that helped the Royals to post its best relief season – by ERA – in the Wild Card era. The team’s 3.74 bullpen ERA was its best since 1992 and only the 5th time since 1990 that it’s been under 4.00. While Broxton may never return to his previously dominant form, it’s yet another example of the Royals front office adding a low-cost, high-upside, high-velocity reliever a move that, if it works, could lead the Royals to their first consecutive seasons with bullpen ERAs below 4.00 since they did so three consecutive seasons from 1988-90 and could lead Broxton to a significantly larger payday after 2012.

After going from 1983 to 2007 without a single postseason appearance, the Milwaukee Brewers once again played into October in 2011 for the second time in four seasons. It was that team success that helped to propel Ryan Braun to his first National League MVP award.

Braun becomes just the third Brewers player to capture the MVP, joining Robin Yount in 1989 and 1982 and Rollie Fingers in 1981. It comes in a season where he became the first player in franchise history to post a .330 batting average along with 30 home runs and 100 RBI. Further adding to the accolades, he became the first Brewers player since Tommy Harper in 1970 to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in a season.

While the final points total revealed just how close Braun and his primary competition for the award, Matt Kemp, were in 2011, Braun dominated the first-place votes, receiving 20 out of 32.

Kemp received 10, with Braun's teammate Prince Fielder and Justin Upton of the Arizona Diamondbacks each picking up a single first-place vote.

The tale of Braun's MVP cannot be fully told without discussing what ultimately cost Kemp the recognition -- team success. A look at both traditional and advanced statistics suggest that, in terms of performance, Kemp contributed the superior 2011 season.

For the traditionalists, Kemp exceeded Braun in on-base percentage, home runs, RBI and stolen bases. For those who prefer advanced metrics, Kemp led the National League in Wins Above Replacement (WAR) while Braun ranked third, and Kemp ranked third in Win Probability Added (WPA) with Braun fourth.

The difference, of course, was that the Brewers and Braun won the NL Central while Kemp and the Dodgers languished out of contention for much of the year before a late-season surge pushed them above .500.

Ultimately, a Kemp win would have been historically unprecedented, entirely because of the lack of success the Los Angeles Dodgers had this season. Much as Jacoby Ellsbury and Jose Bautista saw support erode when their teams missed the postseason, Kemp likely suffered from much the same fate.

Had the voters selected him, the Dodgers' win percentage this season would have been the worst of all-time for a team that had both the Cy Young and MVP in the same season.

Only one team in MLB history has had the MVP and Cy Young awards won by different players in the same season and not made the postseason -- the 1962 Dodgers with Maury Wills and Don Drysdale. Those are steep odds that Kemp was facing and, ultimately, that lack of team success cost him the 2011 MVP.

Each Sunday, ESPN Stats & Information reviews significant moves from the past week.

Dodgers sign Mark Ellis

Two things to note about the newest Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman, Mark Ellis, using advanced statistical measurements:

1-- Ellis has a good defensive statistical history at second base.

Ellis’ presence could be a boost to the Dodgers, whose second basemen ranked tied for third-worst in the majors with -13 Defensive Runs Saved. That metric considers a fielder’s ability to turn batted balls into outs and convert double plays.

Ellis finished tied for fifth among second basemen with 10 Defensive Runs Saved in 2011. His 43 Defensive Runs Saved since 2008 rank tied with Dustin Pedroia for third-best among second basemen (largely due to his 24 Defensive Runs Saved in 2008).

2-- Ellis had one of the roughest offensive seasons of anyone in baseball in 2011.

Win Probability Added (charted at Fangraphs.com) measures a hitter’s ability to do things that contribute to his team's chance to win (reaching base late in close games has greater value than doing so in a 10-0 game).

Ellis ranked third-worst among anyone who came to bat in 2011 in Win Probability Added. He was viewed as costing his team 3.35 wins with his offensive contributions (2 players rated worse- Alcides Escobar and Alex Rios).

This is likely largely due to his hitting .184 with runners in scoring position in 2011, well below the .337 and .339 he hit the two previous seasons.

Ellis was 6-for-51 in what were termed by Fangraphs as "high leverage” situations. Those are instances in which the Win Probability had the chance of having its greatest swing.
-- Mark Simon

Twins agree to sign Ryan Doumit
The reshaping of the Minnesota Twins continued with their agreeing to terms with catcher Ryan Doumit. His intended use will be as a designated hitter, catcher and first baseman, serving as injury insurance for stars Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau.

It will be interesting to see how the switch-hitting Doumit fares as a left-handed hitter at spacious Target Field.

As a Pirate, Doumit averaged a homer every 26 at-bats batting left-handed and hit a robust .288 with 17 home runs from that side in 441 at-bats over the last two seasons.

That batting average came from a penchant for getting hits with his line drives at a good rate. Over the last two seasons, our pitch-performance data has Doumit as 55-for-65 when hitting a line drive when hitting a line drive from that side of the plate.

Major leaguers typically get hits on about 72 percent of their line drives, meaning that in this span, Doumit has been about eight hits better than the average big leaguer.

Also worth noting: Target Field rated the seventh-toughest park for a left-handed hitter to homer in, according to the Park Factors from Baseball Info Solutions.

While Doumit may have some value as a left-handed power bat, he may not bring much to the Twins defense.

Since the start of 2010, Doumit has thrown out just 16.7 percent of baserunners, second-worst among qualifying catchers. His 13 passed balls rank third-worst over the last two seasons behind Josh Thole (20) and Miguel Montero (14).

According to a study done by Baseball Prospectus' Mike Fast in September, Doumit has cost his teams a total of 66 runs because of his poor pitch-framing skills since 2007, as measured by getting extra strike calls at the edge of the zone. That is the most of any catcher in the last five seasons combined.

Doumit has played fewer than 50 innings at first base since 2007, and none last year. In 251 career innings at the position, he's totaled -4 Defensive Runs Saved.
Mark Simon & Katie Sharp

What is reasonable to expect out of a centerfielder being paid $160 million over eight years?

Is 140 games a year reasonable for Dodgers centerfielder Matt Kemp, who signed an eight-year deal on Friday? How about 150?

In the nine spans of eight years since 1996 (in other words, from 1996 to 2003, 1997 to 2004, 1998 to 2005 etc), only one player has averaged 150 games per season in center field-- Andruw Jones, who played at least 150 games in center in every season from 1998 to 2007.

More realistic is an average of 140 games per season. Since 1996, that’s been done over an eight-year span by the following centerfielders-- Carlos Beltran, Mike Cameron, Steve Finley, Andruw Jones, and Juan Pierre.

How about in terms of Wins Above Replacement?

Wins Above Replacement (abbreviated as WAR) establishes a player's value based on his offensive and defensive performance, as well as the position he plays and how much he plays. A player with a 2.0 WAR is an average major league player. An All-Star is usually in the five-to-six range is an All-Star. Matt Kemp was an 8.7 last season, which is MVP-caliber.

Let’s set the bar at performing at an All-Star level over an eight-year period.

Averaging five Wins Above Replacement over an eight-year span, establishes you as one of baseball’s great players.

Four players reached 40 Wins Above Replacement from 2004 to 2011: Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Chase Utley

It used to be easier to accumulate this many Wins Above Replacement. From 2001 to 2008 and 2002 to 2009, nine position players did so. But this has not been the case in the last two eight-year stretches.

In the last four seasons, Kemp totaled 17.8 Wins Above replacement, including an 0.4 season in 2010.

In 2011, he was valued at 8.7 Wins Above Replacement. His next-best season, 2009, he was valued at 5.2 Wins Above Replacement.

So it becomes a question of this:

Is Kemp capable of eight seasons which average out to his 2009 season-- a slashline of .297/.352/.490, with 26 home runs and 34 stolen bases.

But even if he does this, it might not be enough to play at a five-WAR level because of defensive issues, at least statistically.

Kemp is a player for whom there is a disconnect between the Gold Glove voting and advanced defensive metrics. He won Gold Glove Awards in 2009 and 2011, but the advanced stats don't rate him anywhere near baseball's best.

While Kemp’s throwing arm rates very well relative to those at his position, his ability to turn batted balls into outs does not.
Baseball Info Solutions has a plus-minus rating that looks at how many plays and bases above or below average that a fielder is at his position. If a centerfielder catches balls in spots that other players don’t historically catch balls, he gets rewarded. If a centerfielder misses balls hit to spots where fielders catch a lot of balls, he gets penalized.

Since 2009, Kemp is 22 plays and 42 bases BELOW average among centerfielders, second-worst in baseball to Adam Jones of the Orioles. He’s never had a season in which he finished with a positive plus-minus rating (he fares similarly via another defensive metric, UZR).

Kemp has gotten hurt the most on balls hit to the deepest parts of centerfield. That accounts for 38 of the 42 bases in his below-average rating.

This may be Kemp’s issue. Or it may be an issue of positioning by the Dodgers coaching staff, or any other number of factors that come into play when establishing defensive value.

Regardless it’s something that could get in the way of his statistical greatness and bears watching as he establishes his worth over the next eight years.

The Dodgers may not have had the best of seasons in 2011, but their ace, Clayton Kershaw, had a season that evoked the names of some of the best pitchers in Dodgers history.

Kershaw is the Dodgers first pitcher to win the Cy Young Award since reliever Eric Gagne in 2003 and the first Dodgers starter to win it since Orel Hershiser in 1988.

Kershaw finished with 21 wins, 248 strikeouts, and a 2.28 ERA. The last pitcher to hit or better all three of those benchmarks in a season was Pedro Martinez for the 1999 Red Sox.
The only two other National League pitchers to reach these plateaus in the last 40 years are Steve Carlton (1972 Phillies) and Dwight Gooden (1985 Mets). The last Dodgers pitcher to do so was Hall-of-Famer Sandy Koufax in 1966.

Kershaw was the first Dodgers pitcher to lead the National League in wins since Brad Penny and Derek Lowe in 2006, the first to be best in ERA since Kevin Brown in 2000, and the first to top the leader board in strikeouts since Hideo Nomo in 1995.

Kershaw was 12-3 with a 1.93 ERA in 18 starts this season against teams that finished the year with winning records. The Elias Sports Bureau notes that the only other pitcher with more than eight such wins this season was Ian Kennedy (9-2, 2.97 ERA in 14 starts).

Elias also notes that Kershaw closed the season with a flourish. His 1.31 ERA after the All-Star Break is the best of any pitcher in Dodgers history.

He and Justin Verlander each won the Pitching Triple Crown, the first time that had been done in both leagues in the same season since Hall-of-Famers Dazzy Vance (Dodgers) and Walter Johnson (Senators) won in 1924.

What made Kershaw better than he’d been in previous seasons?

Considering that the difference in Kershaw’s batting average on balls in play from 2010 to 2011 was minimal (.279 in 2010; .274 in 2011), what most made Kershaw dominant was his strikeout increase (from 212 to 248) and walk decrease (from 81 to 54).

That came from Kershaw changing the mix of pitches with which he got outs in 2011.

In 2009 and 2010, Kershaw was a pitcher who got 70 percent of his outs with his fastball. Last season, he evolved into someone who used his heater to get outs just over half of the time.

The big jump for Kershaw was in the increased use of his slider as his dominant out pitch (something we noted in August). It got one-third of his outs in 2011, a rate that was basically double what it got in 2010.

That was even more pronounced with two strikes, as Kershaw went from throwing breaking pitches 35 percent of the time in 2010 to doing so in 60 percent of his two-strike counts last season.

Kershaw’s high rate of success with his slider was evident in this stat: He struck out 138 hitters with his slider, the most strikeouts with that pitch in the majors.

The image below illustrates Kershaw’s change in approach. The image on the left shows the location of Kershaw’s strikeout pitches to right-handed hitters in 2010. The image on the right shows a much different look for 2011.

The red shading accounts for an area in which Kershaw whiffed 62 hitters last season, nearly double the number the number he had in that location in 2010.