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Baseball’s 16th season of interleague play is under way with celebrations of natural rivalries -- Cubs against White Sox, Orioles against Nationals, A’s against Giants among others -- and in one instance a chance for National League fans to get a load of Josh Hamilton.

The Texas Rangers will travel down I-45 and give Houston Astros fans a look at baseball’s hottest hitter.

Hamilton already has the second-highest career batting average in interleague games, but also comes into this series on a historic tear.

Hamilton’s 16-game hit streak came to an end on Thursday when his day off ended early against Oakland. He pinch-hit and ended up 0-for-2 in a loss to the Athletics, but Hamilton still leads the American League in home runs, RBIs and batting average.

Hamilton’s hitting streak included a week, from May 7-13, that might have been as impressive as any in history.

He hit .467 with nine home runs and 18 RBI and an OPS of 1.963. His week included the 16th four-home run game in baseball history, and his nine home runs for the week matched the combined total hit that week by last season’s nine leading home run hitters: Jose Bautista 3, Curtis Granderson 2, Giancarlo Stanton 2, Dan Uggla 1 and Prince Fielder 1.

Texas and Houston meet each season in home-and-home series in interleague play (competing for the Silver Boot trophy), so the Astros have experienced Hamilton’s bat. Over the past three seasons against Houston pitching, Hamilton is 26-for-65 (.400) with four home runs and 13 RBI.

ESPN's Home Run Tracker analyzes video of each home run hit this season and as far back as 2006. Each month, the tracker will detail the best and worst home runs, as well as some other interesting statistics pertaining to the long ball. Below are the notable home runs for the month of April.

Power Surge: (Player with highest combined HR distance)
2011 Winner: Jose Bautista
March/April Winner: Matt Kemp
Kemp is off to a torrid start, with 12 home runs that have traveled a true distance of 4,802 feet. That’s a longer true distances than the Padres, who have hit 11 home runs, and the Cubs, who have hit the fewest HR (9) entering May. Kemp's 12 home runs are two shy of the record set by Albert Pujols in 2006 and Alex Rodriguez in 2007 for the most home runs by April 30.

No Doubter (Longest true distance)
2011 Winner: Prince Fielder (486 feet)
March/April Winner: Travis Hafner (481 feet)
On April 15, Cleveland’s DH hit a home run of the Royals Luis Mendoza, the longest HR of his career. Hafner’s previous long was 454 feet in 2006. The 481-foot shot is the longest HR by an Indian since the beginning of our database (2006).

Wall-Scraper (Shortest true distance)
2011 Winner: Asdrubal Cabrera (320 feet)
March/April Winner: B.J. Upton (323 feet)
On April 24, Upton hit a home run off Ervin Santana that hit off the left-field foul pole. Chris Iannetta hit a 324-foot HR off Phil Hughes, the only other player this season to hit a home run less than 345 feet.

Moonshot: (Highest Apex - maximum vertical height a ball reaches)
2011 Winner: Mark Reynolds (161 feet)
March/April Winner: Todd Helton (162 feet)
On April 14, Helton hit a walk-off home run off J.J. Putz. The ball hung in the air for 6.92 seconds, the highest apex HR since Alex Rodriguez reached 169 feet on Sept 11, 2009.

Liner: (Lowest Apex)
2011 Winner: Carlos Peguero (39 feet, twice)
March/April Winners: Curtis Granderson/Luke Scott (49 feet)
Ervin Santana, who gave up the shortest HR of the month, also gave up the lowest apex. On April 13, Santana served up a 349-foot solo shot to Granderson that had an apex of 49 feet. Scott matched Granderson with a 387-foot laser off Mark Lowe, which also never got higher than 49 feet off the ground.

Mother Nature: (Most climate-impacted HR)
2011 Winner: Luke Scott
March/April Winner: Miguel Cabrera
Even the best need help from time to time. On April 26, Cabrera hit a 382-foot home run off Hector Noesi, but a 15 mph wind gust helped the ball carry an extra 62 feet. Without the wind, it would have been a routine fly out.

Server: (Pitcher who allowed the greatest cumulative distance)
2011 Winner: Bronson Arroyo
March/April Winner: Ervin Santana
In addition to giving up the shortest and the lowest apex home runs, Santana’s 10 home runs allowed traveled a total distance of 3,844 feet.

Launching Pad: (Greatest cumulative distance in one stadium)
2011 Winner: Rangers Ballpark in Arlington
March/April Winner: Rogers Centre
Thirty-eight HR have been hit in Rogers Centre thus far, with a total distance of 15,072 feet. Chase Field in Arizona finished second, totaling 12,803 feet. Conversely, only six HR were hit at AT&T Park in April.

The Milwaukee Brewers head to the Windy City to open a four-game series against the Chicago Cubs tonight (ESPN, 7 ET). The Brewers went 10-6 against the Cubs last season, their first winning season against Chicago since 2005. The Cubs were 45-34 against Milwaukee from 2006-10.

Starting Pitchers
Shaun Marcum takes the mound for the Brewers in his first start of the season. Marcum is coming off a career year in 2011 – his first in the National League after starting his career with the Toronto Blue Jays - as he set career highs with 33 starts and 200⅔ IP, and tied his career high with 13 wins.

The cutter will be Marcum’s weapon, a pitch he improved and increased his use of last season. In 2011, he threw his cutter 17.7 percent of the time and has a miss percentage of 26.0, compared to throwing it 15.9 percent of the time with a 22.2 miss percentage in 2010. In addition, Marcum allowed only two HR off his cutter last season, compared to seven home runs in 2010.

Chris Volstad is 1-1 with a sparkling 1.71 ERA in four career starts against the Brewers. He’ll be excited to see Milwaukee without Prince Fielder in the lineup. Volstad’s opponents’ batting average against lefties was fifth-worst in the majors last season.

Volstad’s performance against lefties has gotten worse each of his four seasons in the majors. In 2008, he allowed lefties to hit .243 against him, but saw left-handed hitters become more comfortable in each of the subsequent years – hitting .255 in 2009; .292 in 2010; and a career-high .305 against him last season. Only four other pitchers (min. 300 AB) had a higher opponent batting average against left-handed batters last season.

Stat of the Game
Milwaukee entered the season without Prince Fielder for the first time since 2005 (signed a free-agent contract with the Detroit Tigers). It’s only three games, but they are feeling his loss as their first basemen (Mat Gamel and Travis Ishikawa) are a combined 2-for-12 with five strikeouts and no extra-base hits. Fielder is hitting .417 with two HR and two strikeouts in three games with the Tigers.

Key Matchup
Chicago second baseman Darwin Barney is 3-for-7 with three doubles against Marcum, but the rest of the Cubs are 5-for-53 (.094) with two extra-base hits combined. David DeJesus is 0-for-16 with four strikeouts against him.

John Fisher contributed to this post

The American League East, after a fairly quiet offseason, remains ahead of the field using the formula to rate baseball’s six divisions that the ESPN Stats & Information Group rolled out in 2011.

The formula accounts for four different variables that measure team and divisional strength: ESPN.com power rankings, non-divisional win percentage, strength of schedule and individual player rankings.

Each team is given a score from 4 to 120, based on those four variables (1-30 for each variable), and the total score is averaged by the number of teams in each division.

Based upon these ratings, the American League East was the strongest division at the end of the 2011 regular season with an average of 83.2 points. The National League East was second, nearly 15 points behind the AL East.

For much of 2011, both East divisions battled for the top spot in the rankings, but the American League East took a commanding lead in August and never was overtaken. The Florida Marlins, New York Mets and Washington Nationals combined to go 24-37 in non-divisional games last August. Even with the collapse of the Boston Red Sox in September, the NL East could not recover from a weak August.

Looking ahead to 2012, the American League West and Central divisions have gained ground on the top divisions -- thanks in large part to the additions of Albert Pujols (Los Angeles Angels) and Prince Fielder (Detroit Tigers). Both the AL West and Central divisions benefited from their arrivals -- both divisions have jumped 1.8 points since last season.

The AL East still remains far ahead of the other divisions after a fairly quiet offseason. Three of the top six and four of the top 12 teams in the ESPN.com preseason power rankings reside in the AL East, validating the strength of the division.

Even with the reigning World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, the National League Central is ranked as the weakest division heading into 2012. The division lost Pujols and Fielder, two of last season's top 12 hitters, according to ESPN’s Player Rater.

Expect the next edition of the divisional rankings to look drastically different, as many teams open the season against non-divisional opponents. Highlighted by Wednesday night’s matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins (ESPN, 7 ET), the first week of the season is filled with divisional and inter-divisional matchups of power teams sure to alter future rankings.

Earlier today, the Washington Nationals and third baseman Ryan Zimmerman agreed to a six-year, $100 million contract extension. The contract reportedly includes an option for a seventh year that would keep Zimmerman in Washington through 2020, if exercised. There are several angles for potential analysis, centering around both the historical place of the contract as well as Zimmerman’s own performance.

Angle No. 1: The Contract

Zimmerman’s agreement with the Nationals immediately became the second-largest contract issued in franchise history, falling short only of the free-agent commitment the team made to outfielder Jayson Werth last offseason. When one considers the two years and $26 million that is remaining on his current contract, the Nationals owe Zimmerman $126 million through 2019. With the agreement, Zimmerman becomes one of just six players to be locked up through at least 2019, joining Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder, Troy Tulowitzki, Ryan Braun and Matt Kemp.

The average annual value of the contract works out to $16.7 million, the second-most of any third baseman, behind only Alex Rodriguez, inching past the $16 million average of Adrian Beltre’s recent deal with the Texas Rangers. It is also the third-most lucrative extension signed by a player from the 2005 MLB draft class, behind only Tulowitzki and Braun.

All told, the Nationals have now committed $126 million to Zimmerman starting in 2012. That is the 10th-most money owed to any player in baseball by any team starting this upcoming season.

Angle No. 2: The Performance

Six full seasons into his MLB career, Zimmerman has produced several elite seasons, while also having several seasons marred by injury. There is little question that when he is healthy, he is capable of producing borderline MVP-caliber seasons.

Since the start of the 2006 season -- Zimmerman’s first full year in the majors -- he ranks 11th among all position players in Wins Above Replacement, ahead of such notable large-contract recipients as Adrian Gonzalez and Jose Reyes. He ranks third among third basemen in WAR, behind Rodriguez and David Wright. Much of that value is derived from his defense – according to Baseball Info Solutions’ Defensive Runs Saved, Zimmerman ranks third among all position players since 2007 with 73 runs saved and has finished in the top three among third basemen in the category in four of the last five seasons.

He has also produced some of the greatest seasons in Nationals/Expos franchise history. His 2009 and 2010 seasons rank second and fifth, respectively, in franchise history, with his 2009 mark of 7.3 WAR ranking behind only Vladimir Guerrero's 2002 season (7.6) and tied with Tim Raines in 1985 and Gary Carter in 1984.

But while Zimmerman has displayed the ability to be an impact player at times, he’s struggled to do so consistently. 2011 was the second season in the last four that was noticeably impacted by injuries, as Zimmerman played in only 101 games. The injury issues may have had an impact on his performance; between 2009-10, he produced an average line of .299 BA, .893 OPS, 29 home runs and 96 RBI. In 2011, his OPS dropped nearly 100 points to .798, while he hit just 12 home runs. Specifically, Zimmerman has experienced a decline in his power output since 2009, with a corresponding increase in the rate at which he’s hitting balls on the ground.

Presumably, Zimmerman has provided the Nationals with everything they expected when they made him the fourth overall pick in the 2005 MLB draft, as he ranks first in the entire draft class in Wins Above Replacement to this point, ahead of the likes of Tulowitzki, Braun and Justin Upton. But the value of the extension will be based on Zimmerman’s ability to stay on the field and reverse the downward trend in his power output.

It also raises the question of what the Nationals plan to do with third basemen Anthony Rendon, the sixth overall pick from the 2011 draft, to whom Washington gave the ninth-highest major league contract in draft history. But that is an issue for another day. For now, the Nationals locked up the franchise’s best player through 2019 and did so at a total cost of less than they paid Jayson Werth last offseason.

According to ESPN Home Run Tracker, which spent the 2011 season tracking all of Prince Fielder’s long fly balls (outs and hits), the new Detroit Tigers slugger would have had a significantly different home run total had he played in Detroit last season. Of Fielder’s 24 home runs at Miller Park in 2011, nine would not have been home runs in Comerica Park’s cavernous confines. One could have gone either way and 14 definitely would have been home runs.

For the sake of consistency, weather was neutralized when simulating Fielder’s long drives from Miller Park to Comerica Park. Although Detroit and Milwaukee have relatively comparable weather, Miller Park has a retractable roof and Comerica Park is an open-air ballpark. Wind patterns and cold fronts could play a big factor in Fielder’s home run totals in 2012, but just as important will be his approach at the plate.

In Milwaukee, Fielder took advantage of Miller Park’s short power alleys, hitting for power to all fields: 28.9 percent of his fly balls at home went for home runs, the highest such mark in the majors.

Fielder may become more “pull happy” in an effort to adapt to his new surroundings. A similar case can be seen in Mark Teixeira at Yankee Stadium, and Jason Giambi before him. Even Fielder’s father, Cecil, had to adapt to Tiger Stadium’s cavernous centerfield by pulling the ball more frequently.

That may prove difficult as teams have found a few weaknesses in Fielder’s approach and he’s also going to be changing leagues. Facing lefties in 2011, Fielder hit .067 (2-30) with 19 strikeouts against sliders down and away in the zone. Righties had less success against Fielder, but managed to hold Fielder to a .250 average (16-64, 17 K) against fastballs up in the zone.

That provides little relief when one comes to realize Fielder hit better than .300 against all pitch types from righties, outside of cutters (.273) and splitters (.267).

So who will give Fielder the biggest fits in the AL Central? The Cleveland Indians' Ubaldo Jimenez held lefties to a .125 average (9-72, 32 K) against high heat in 2011. Lefties hit just .254 (15-59, 21 K) against Jimenez’ splitter as well. At least on paper, Jimenez should be Fielder’s AL Central nemesis.

Others could include Francisco Liriano, depending on which version we see in 2011, and his Minnesota Twins teammate Carl Pavano. Lefties hit .335 against Pavano’s heat, but just .212 and .213 respectively against his splitter and changeup.

Fielder's final stat line in 2011 will ultimately come down to how quickly he can make adjustments: adjustments to a new team, city, league and stadium.

Many of Fielder’s long drives that went for home runs in Miller Park will still result in extra-base hits in Detroit. Of Fielder’s nine home runs that did not translate to Comerica Park in our analysis, five would have hit the outfield fence. The average distance among those nine “non-homers” was 415 feet, roughly 11 feet longer than the average MLB home run in 2011.

Prince Fielder has agreed to terms on a nine-year, $214 million contract with the Tigers.

This will be the fourth-largest contract, in terms of total value, in MLB history, trailing the two contracts signed by Alex Rodriguez ($275 million and $252 million) and the contract signed by Albert Pujols this offseason ($240 million).

Fielder ranks second in the majors with 200 home runs since 2007, and also ranks in the top five in that span in RBI, slugging percentage, and OPS.

In 2011, he ranked in the top two in the majors in games, home runs, RBI, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage.

Fielder joins a Tigers team that had a lineup spot to fill after it lost Victor Martinez to a torn ACL. The Tigers finished in the top four in the American League in runs scored, batting average, and OPS last season, and were seventh in the AL with 169 home runs.

Fielder averaged 20 home runs per season at Miller Park over the last six seasons, but will now play his home games at Comerica Park.

Since Comerica opened in 2000, the most home runs hit by a left-handed hitter there is 14, by Carlos Pena in 2005.

Since 2009, left-handed hitters hit 209 home runs at Miller Park, and hit 174 in Brewers road games, giving the park a Ballpark Factor of 116 for left-handed hitters, sixth-highest in the majors.

In the same span, left-handed hitters hit 191 home runs at Comerica Park and 213 home runs in Tigers road games, giving Comerica Park, a Park Factor of 89. That's eighth-lowest in the majors for left-handed hitters.

Last season at Miller Park, Fielder hit 77 fly balls, 22 of which went for home runs. On the road, he hit 85 fly balls, 13 of which were home runs.

Fielder ranks among the game's top hitters in terms of situational offensive contribution, with almost identical numbers as Pujols.

Over the last three seasons, Fielder ranks third among all players in Win Probability Added, which rates player performance on a play-by-play basis. Fielder added approximately 17.5 wins to his team with his offensive production, trailing only Joey Votto (19.9 wins) and Albert Pujols (18 wins).

Fielder ranks fifth among first baseman in the advanced metric, Wins Above Replacement, with 15.3 wins contributed over the last three seasons, trailing Pujols (21.5), Votto (18.9), new teammate Miguel Cabrera (18.9), and Adrian Gonzalez (18.0).

Fielder’s defensive value can be evaluated with the metric Defensive Runs Saved, which rates players based on the skills most pertinent to their position. That stat shows that Fielder has cost his team 48 runs since 2006, 10 more than any other first baseman in that span.

Prince will become one of several notable father-son pairs to play for the same team at some point in their career, joining the likes of the Bonds’ (San Francisco Giants) and Griffey’s (Cincinnati Reds, Seattle Mariners).

Prince’s father, Cecil Fielder, hit 245 home runs as a first baseman for the Tigers in the 1990s. That ranks fifth-most in team history. For Fielder to match his father, he would have to average approximately 27.2 home runs per season.

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.

While this offseason’s free agency class is headlined by the likes of Albert Pujols, Prince Fielder and Jose Reyes, there are a number of secondary options who stand to receive lucrative contracts in their own right. Two of them – third baseman Aramis Ramirez and reliever Ryan Madson – are likely to be a bit overvalued by suitors, but for entirely different reasons.

Aramis Ramirez
While Ramirez rebounded from a replacement level 2010 campaign to post a .306/.361/.510 line with 26 home runs and 93 RBI, there were indicators across-the-board that point towards a potentially quick decline for Ramirez, a concern relevant to any team interested in signing him.

Ramirez is becoming increasingly less patient as the years go by, both in the form of chasing pitches outside of the strike zone and in generating walks. In 2010 and 2011, Ramirez has posted walk rates of 6.7 and 6.9 percent, respectively, representing a clear decline from his 11.2 percent mark in 2008 and 8.2 in 2009. Perhaps more telling, the rate at which Ramirez is swinging at pitches outside of the strike zone is rapidly increasing since 2008.

In addition to the steady increase, Ramirez’s 2011 mark was the 5th-worst in the NL in 2011, behind only Alfonso Soriano, Alex Gonzalez, Yuniesky Betancourt and Michael Morse. Coupled with the decline in his plate discipline is the idea that he is not long for third base defensively. After posting a +11 mark at the hot corner according to Defensive Runs Saved in 2008, Ramirez has been below-average in each season since – and there’s a pattern; Ramirez graded out at -4 in 2009, -10 in 2010 and -12 in 2011. The 2011 mark ranked 2nd-to-last among NL third basemen.

Ryan Madson
This offseason, Madson is one of the most coveted free agent relievers in baseball. That was to be expected, fresh off his first full season as the Philadelphia Phillies closer, complete with 32 saves and a 2.37 ERA in 60 2/3 innings. Whether or not the reported lucrative deal with the Phillies materializes, someone will pay Madson. The reason he stands to make $40 million or more this offseason has little to do with a significant jump in his skills, however, and more to do with the fact he now has the official ‘closer’ label.

In 2010, Madson posted five saves. In 2011, he registered 32. That would seem to indicate a noticeable jump in value or performance from Madson. In reality, he was nearly identical, with some actual decline in key spots.

The difference was largely in an unsustainable home run rate – Madson allowed home runs on 0.9 percent of plate appearances, which was the 16th-best mark out of the 339 pitchers who registered at least 200 plate appearances this season. Had Madson entered the market after 2010 – when he demonstrated much the same skill set he did in 2011 – he would likely not have been offered anything approaching $40 million.

Whether or not offering a reliever that sort of money is a wise proposition is a different question entirely. In the history of the game, six relievers have received contracts of three or more years at an average annual value of at least $9 million – B.J. Ryan, Billy Wagner, Francisco Cordero, Mariano Rivera, Francisco Rodriguez and Rafael Soriano. It would be fair to say that only Rivera returned the sort of performance expected.

Rafael Soriano: signed after 2010 season; posted highest ERA (min 30 IP) since 2002 and missed much of the season due to injury.

Francisco Rodriguez: signed after 2008; 62 saves in final year with Los Angeles Angels, never saved more than 35 with New York Mets. Suspended in 2010, traded in 2011 to avoid vesting option.

Mariano Rivera: signed after 2007; posted ERA below 2.00 in each season of contract.

Francisco Cordero: signed after 2007; strikeout rate dropped from 10.0 to 7.8 to 7.3 to 5.4 over life of deal. Posted an Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP) below 4.00 once during contract (2008).

Billy Wagner: signed after 2005; innings pitched and saves both declined each season he was with Mets.

B.J. Ryan: signed after 2005; Just 155 1/3 innings pitched in 5 seasons; missed majority of three different seasons (2007, 2009, 2010).

Clearly, the Phillies, or any other team, may give pause to signing Madson, or any other reliever, to such a lucrative contract given the history of performance for those who have received such a contract in the past.

Much of the focus on the free agent frenzy this winter will be on the top tier of available players, such as Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols and Jose Reyes. However, there are several under-the-radar free agents that could provide significant value. Let’s take a look at a two players who had disappointing seasons on the surface, but who may be better than people think from a statistical perspective.

David DeJesus
One is former Kansas City Royals outfielder David DeJesus. Last year, DeJesus had his worst offensive season for the Oakland Athletics, setting career lows in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

However, some of his .240 batting average is likely a result of a .274 batting average on balls in play, well below his career mark of .316 and the lowest in a season for him.

Inside Edge does video tracking of every batted ball and discovered an interesting development for DeJesus; on balls categorized as “soft,” he hit .281 in 2010 (26-for-117), but just .136 (18-for-132) in 2011. That difference cost him more than 30 points on his overall batting average.


There were several positives for DeJesus last year, however. He showed good plate discipline, as his walk rate of 8.9 percent was just shy of his career-best, 9.1 percent in 2007.

Despite the low batting average, he still provided his usual power, with an isolated power (which measures extra-bases per at-bat) of .136 that was in line with his career mark of .137. And he was one of the best defensive outfielders, with 13 Defensive Runs Saved that was third among all right-fielders.

Chris Capuano
Chris Capuano won’t be stealing any headlines this winter, but he could be a steal for a team needing a starting pitcher to fill out the rotation. Capuano’s 4.55 ERA for the Mets was partly inflated by a .311 batting average on balls in play (career average of .300) that rose to .338 with men on base.

He also allowed a career-high 1.31 homers per nine innings, but that was affected by a career-high home run-to-flyball rate, as one out of every eight flyballs he allowed became a home run.

On a positive note, he struck out a career-best 8.1 batters per nine innings and walked only 2.5 batters per nine innings, the second-best rate of his career.

Looking just at the elements of his pitching that he can control – strikeouts, walks, home runs – and accounting for some bad luck on the flyballs he allowed, we see that Capuano pitched much better than his ERA may indicate.

His xFIP - Expected Fielding Independent Pitching, an ERA estimator that looks at strikeouts and walks, and presumes the pitcher will be league-average on his rate of fly balls per home run - was a career-best 3.66, just a few points higher than Jon Lester’s 3.62 last year.

Six first basemen have signed contracts with total value of $100 million or more, including Albert Pujols’ deal with the Cardinals that lasted from 2004-10. He was the first ever to do so.

His new contract and Prince Fielder’s both could be within reach of the largest deal for a first baseman -- the $180 million the New York Yankees gave to Mark Teixeira in the 2008-09 offseason.

Here are some things to remember about each of the two as the bidding begins on the premier free agents in baseball.

Albert Pujols
In 2011, Pujols had his worst season in Wins Above Replacement, 5.1. That was a steep decline from a 9.0 in 2009 and a 7.5 WAR in 2010.

Pujols was hindered by an 0.4 WAR in March and April when he hit .245, the worst start to a season in his career.

But his performance in his last 93 games of the season was similar to his previous standards, with a .322/.388/.623 slashline, 29 home runs and 71 RBI.

Had Pujols maintained that level for 150 games, he would have finished with 47 home runs and 128 RBI, instead of his 37 and 99.

The heat maps above show an adjustment in Pujols' hot zones. The image on the left shows his power hot zones from 2009 through the first two months of 2011. The image on the right shows a change in success against pitches in the lower part of the strike zone in the last four months of the 2011 season.

Also worth remembering is that Pujols rates well defensively, with 15 Defensive Runs Saved (a metric that analyze a player’s ability to turn batted balls into outs and defend bunts) over the last three seasons. In fact, among Keith Law's top five ranked position player free agents, Pujols is the only one to have a positive Runs Saved value in 2011.

Prince Fielder
The appeal of Fielder is durability (he played in every game for the Brewers last season) and his combination of offensive skills (second in both on-base percentage and slugging percentage last season). His .951 OPS over the past four seasons ranks fourth-best in the majors.

Fielder’s performance has fluctuated against left-handed pitching. Last season marked the second straight in which his power numbers were down against lefties.

Though there are those who don’t believe clutch hitting to be a repeatable skill, Fielder has been consistently good in key spots throughout his career.

Fielder has a career batting average of .310 with 35 home runs and 96 RBI in 496 at-bats in “late and close” situations, which are defined by Baseball-Reference.com as those that came in the seventh inning or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run on deck.

Fielder has many strengths, but signing him means accepting a few of his statistical shortcomings.

In four of his five seasons, Fielder cost his team at least 10 runs with his defense (meaning he had -10 Defensive Runs Saved or worse), though that dropped to only costing his team one run in 2011.

Baseball Info Solutions also does video review of every play from every game, grouping plays into different categories of Defensive Misplays.

Fielder led first basemen with 42 Defensive Misplays and Errors last season, 13 of which came from mishandling throws from his teammates, also the most in the majors.

The circumstances are such for the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 3 of the NLCS that they don’t have many options as to how they can pitch to St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols. This is due to how he’s performed in the 2011 playoffs, as well as how he’s performed in the past against their pitcher on Wednesday night.

This postseason, Pujols has seen 61 fastballs (including cut fastballs and sinkers). He’s swung at 33 of them and those swings have netted 10 hits and just five outs.

It hasn’t mattered where Pujols has been pitched. If he sees a fastball, chances are good he’s going to do damage. He has four hits against them when they were out of the strike zone, most recently two of his three doubles in Monday’s rout of the Brewers.

The heat map above shows the areas in which he’s seen fastballs most frequently, with the red shading representing 30 pitches. He’s 8-for-12 against those 30 pitches.

Pujols is 10-for-his-last-18 against Brewers Game 3 starter Yovani Gallardo, including 6-for-11 this season with three home runs. On September 1, Pujols hit a pair of home runs, including a grand slam, against Gallardo in an 8-4 win that helped start the Cardinals surge into the postseason.

The grand slam came on a fastball above the top of the strike zone, but the other two home runs came on breaking balls just above the bottom of the strike zone. In fact, dating back to 2009, Pujols has five hits and has made just six outs against breaking pitches from Gallardo.

Inside the Series
The Cardinals went 5-4 at home against the Brewers this season, despite only scoring 25 runs in those nine games. Their most recent meeting was a 2-0 Cardinals shutout on September 7, in which Game 3 Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter went the distance on a four-hitter.

Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun went a combined 11-for-64 with one home run among the 20 fly balls that they hit at Busch Stadium this season. That five percent home run rate is a fraction of their home run rate at home (24 percent) during the regular season.

Keep an eye on how the Cardinals do when they get ahead in the count early. The Cardinals have feasted on 1-0 and 2-0 counts in this series. They were 3-for-3 against Brewers pitchers in those counts in Game 1, 4-for-6 in Game 2.

On the Mound
Chris Carpenter is 4-0 at home in his postseason career, the first Cardinal to win his first four postseason decisions at home. He’s 6-2 with a 2.94 ERA in his postseason career, including his win in the clinching Game 5 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Yovani Gallardo has struck out 50 hitters in his last 34 ⅓ innings pitched dating back to the end of the regular season. In his last five starts, 31 of those 50 strikeouts have come with his breaking pitches.

Gallardo pitched eight innings of one-hit ball against the Cardinals on May 7.

Key Stat
Via the Elias Sports Bureau: In a seven-game series, teams who win Game 3 after being tied 1-1 have won the series 58 of 81 times. That includes a 21-8 record in the LCS.

The St. Louis Cardinals evened the National League Championship Series at one game apiece with a 12-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday night at Miller Park, thanks to the scorching-hot bat of Albert Pujols.

Pujols had three doubles and a homer in Game 2, matching the major league record for most extra-base hits in a postseason game. It was his second game this postseason with at least three doubles, as he also became the first player to have three or more doubles in two games in the same postseason.

Pujols snapped a 47-at-bat homerless streak with his two-run homer in the first inning, going deep for the first time in the playoffs since the 2006 World Series. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it was the longest such drought of his career in the postseason.

It was the 14th career postseason homer for Pujols, who passed Jim Edmonds to become the Cardinals' all-time leader. The homer was the sixth he's hit in the first inning of a postseason game, as he moved past Derek Jeter for the most first-inning homers in postseason history.

He also drove in five runs, becoming the second Cardinals player with five or more RBIs in a postseason game. Reggie Sanders had six RBIs in Game 1 of the 2005 NL Division Series. He now has 42 career postseason RBIs, also passing Edmonds for the most in Cardinals history.

Prince Fielder and Rickie Weeks both homered for the Brew Crew. Fielder hit his fourth career postseason homer, moving ahead of Ted Simmons and Paul Molitor for the most in franchise history. Weeks’ first career postseason homer was an unlikely one, as he was 2-for-25 in his postseason career entering the game.

The Cardinals' 12 runs were one shy of their most in a postseason game and were one shy of the most the Brewers had allowed in a postseason game. Coincidentally, both of those records were set in the same game, which was the Cardinals' 13-1 win over the Brewers in Game 6 of the 1982 World Series.

With the blowout victory, the Cardinals became the first team in five tries to beat the Brewers at home this postseason and handed the Brewers just their third loss in their past 13 postseason games in Milwaukee.

The NLCS now heads to St. Louis for a key Game 3 on Wednesday night. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, in a best-of-seven series, teams who win Game 3 after being tied 1-1 have won 58 of the 81 times, including 21 of 29 in the league championship series.

The first of two National League Division Series Game 5s begins in Wisconsin as the Milwaukee Brewers host the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks are the first team in the wild-card era (since 1994) to take an NLDS to a fifth game after trailing 2-0 in the series (the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers did it following a strike-shortened regular season).

Divisional Series History
Arizona is 1-0 all time in LDS Game 5s, with the win coming in 2001 against the St. Louis Cardinals. The Diamondbacks have won back-to-back games following a six-game postseason losing skid.

Milwaukee is 0-1 in LDS Game 5s, with its loss coming in 1981 to the New York Yankees. The Brewers, who went an MLB-best 57-24 at home this season, have won eight of their last 10 postseason home games.

On the Mound
Ian Kennedy will take the ball for Arizona. Kennedy went 6 2/3 innings while allowing four earned runs in Game 1 of this series, his only career postseason start. Arizona is 14-2 in Kennedy’s last 16 starts going back to the regular season

For Milwaukee, Yovani Gallardo will make his third career postseason start. He’s 1-1 with a 0.60 ERA in his first three career postseason appearances (one earned run allowed in 12 innings in two starts). Including the postseason, Gallardo is 6-0 with a 1.18 ERA in six career starts against Arizona.

Player to Watch
Friday could be the final game for Prince Fielder with the Brewers, as he will be a free agent at season’s end. Fielder ranks either first or second in Brewers history in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, home runs and intentional walks.

Notable Prince Fielder Moments
Sept. 25, 2007 -- Fielder reaches 50 home runs for the first time in his career in a win over the Cardinals.

July 13, 2009 -- Fielder wins the Home Run Derby, defeating Nelson Cruz 6-5 in the final round.

Sept. 6, 2009 -- Fielder hits a game-winning home run to beat the San Francisco Giants, and upon landing on home plate, his teammates topple over onto the dirt.

May 20, 2011 -- Fielder hits a two-run, game-winning home run in the 14th inning, giving the Brewers a 7-6 win over the Colorado Rockies. The Brewers were 21-23 entering the day. They would finish the season as NL champs, with this game serving as one of the key sparks to the season.

July 12, 2011 -- Fielder’s three-run home run helps the National League defeat the American League 5-1 in the All-Star Game. Fielder is named the All-Star Game MVP

Sept. 27, 2011 -- Fielder hits three home runs in a game for the first time in his career.

The 2011 regular season finished, arguably, in one of the most exciting fashions in baseball history. Now that the postseason has been set, let’s take a look back at which players won batting and pitching titles this season.

AL Crowns
• For the second consecutive year, Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays claimed the home run title. His 43 on the season were two ahead of the New York Yankees' Curtis Granderson. He's the first to claim the crown in two straight years since Alex Rodriguez did it in 2002-03.

• Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers - who also led the league in doubles with 47 - was the AL (and MLB) batting champion at .344. He is the second Tigers player to win the batting title in the last 50 seasons (Magglio Ordonez in 2007).

• Although Granderson and Robinson Cano started the day one-two in the AL RBI race, it was Mark Teixeira who came up big for the Yankees on Wednesday. His five-RBI game gave him 111 on the season and propelled him into fourth place. The last time three teammates finished within the top four of their league's RBI race was the 1966 Baltimore Orioles. That year, Frank Robinson (122) won the AL RBI race, while teammates Boog Powell (109) and Brooks Robinson (100) finished second and tied for fourth, respectively.

NL Crowns
• Jose Reyes singled in his first at-bat Wednesday and was promptly subbed out for a pinch runner. That left the New York Mets' leadoff hitter with a batting average of .337, potentially caught only by Ryan Braun who started the day at .335. Ultimately he finished the game 0-for-4 for a season average of .332, giving Reyes - and the Mets franchise - their first-ever NL batting champion. Reyes won the NL batting title in only 126 games played this season. That's the fewest amount of games played for a batting champion since Manny Ramirez hit .349 in 120 games played in 2002.

• Prince Fielder and Matt Kemp were tied for the NL home run lead entering Wednesday, but with just three innings left in the season, Kemp launched his 39th of the season out of Chase Field and claimed the title outright. Fielder finished with 38 and was followed by Albert Pujols' 37. The last season the National League leader did not finish with at least 40 HR was in 1992 when Fred McGriff had 35. Kemp also finished as the National League RBI leader with 126, six above Fielder.

• Starlin Castro led the National League in hits this year with 207. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the 21-year-old Castro is the youngest player ever to lead the NL in that category, breaking the mark set in 1918 by another Chicago Cubs player, Charlie Hollocher, who was 22 years, 83 days old on the final day of that war-shortened season.

Other Point of Interest
• Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw both won the pitching Triple Crown in their respective leagues (Wins, ERA and Strikeouts). While the pitching Triple Crown has been won several times in MLB history (most recently by Jake Peavy with the San Diego Padres in 2007), this is the first time there’s been dual pitching Triple Crowns since 1924.