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There are still some good free agents out there, perhaps even a few bargains. What kind of team could you buy if you signed the best of these guys? Let's find out. Here's a 25-man roster of unsigned players, with estimated salaries and WAR (wins above replacement). Would it be a competitive team?

C: Chris Snyder
Snyder is coming off back surgery, but it's a thin lot of available catchers. He's been up and down in his career with his bat, but will draw some walks and has a little pop.

Projected salary: $2.5 million
Projected WAR: 1.0

C: Ramon Castro
The career backup never landed in the right place at the right time, but he can he hit left-handed pitching and provides a capable 200-plate appearance backup.

Projected salary: $1.2 million
Projected WAR: 0.6

1B: Prince Fielder
We're going to empty our pocketbooks and have the big guy anchor our lineup. We'll sign him to a seven-year, $165 million contract, but we'll backload the deal. That way, if we get fired, it screws the next GM.

Projected salary: $20 million
Projected WAR: 5.0

2B: Ryan Theriot
Honestly, he doesn't bring a whole lot to the table other than a proven ability not to be horrible. He'll hit an empty .270 or so and play capable defense.

Projected salary: $2 million
Projected WAR: 0.7

3B: Carlos Guillen
Third base is a bit of a problem so we'll have to gamble on Guillen. He's missed a lot of time the past three years, so we'll sign him to a low base salary with incentives if he remains healthy. Considering the production of third basemen in the majors in 2011, he could produce at a league-wide average for the position.

Projected salary: $1.5 million plus incentives
Projected WAR: 1.0

SS: Ronny Cedeno
No, a shortstop who hits .249/.297/.339 isn't ideal, but Troy Tulowitzki isn't available in this scenario. Still, Cedeno was a 1.5 WAR player in 2011 and there's no reason he can't duplicate that effort again.

Projected salary: $4 million
Projected WAR: 1.5

RF: Carlos Beltran
We need another big bat and Beltran is still out there. He's been compared to Michael Cuddyer, who signed a three-year, $31.5 million deal, so Beltran figures to go in a similar range. The good thing is he's better than Cuddyer. Even if he drops off a bit from his strong 2011, he'll be a productive player.

Projected salary: $12 million
Projected WAR: 3.5

LF: Luke Scott/Andruw Jones
We're going with a platoon here, hoping for Scott to bounce back but signing Jones to play against left-handers. Scott hit .264 and slugged .499 from 2007 to 2010, so we think he has something left in the tank. Jones had a .923 OPS against left-handers in 2011.

Scott's projected salary: $5 million
Scott's projected WAR: 1.9
Jones' projected salary: $3 million
Jones' projected WAR: 1.1

CF: Coco Crisp
We're going to want a good flychaser in center and Crisp is a solid defender who also led the AL with 49 stolen bases. His OBP fell to .314 in 2011, so we should be able to sign him for a decent salary.

Projected salary: $6.5 million
Projected WAR: 2.0

IF: Brooks Conrad
He's an insurance policy for Guillen as someone who could provide some pop off the bench and also play second base in a pinch.

Projected salary: $800,000
Projected WAR: 0.6

IF: Jack Wilson
Ugh. But considering Conrad isn't a glove guy (in fact, I'm not sure he even wears a glove in the field), we better sign Wilson as infield insurance. No, we don't like this move, especially considering Wilson's propensity to get injured while filing his fingernails.

Projected salary: $1.4 million
Projected WAR: 0.0

OF: Rick Ankiel
We wanted to sign Cody Ross here, but he's a little expensive for a fourth outfielder (although isn't that what he should be?). Ankiel can play center and provide a left-handed pinch-hitter off the bench.

Projected salary: $1.5 million
Projected WAR: 0.5

OK, now to the pitching staff, which will have to be the strength of our team.

SP: Roy Oswalt
For all the talk about his injury history, 2011 was his first season he didn't start 30 games since 2003. A bad back is always a concern but this was a guy who led the NL in WHIP in 2010. Jerry Crasnick recently reported that Oswalt wants to show he's healthy and is thus willing to take a one-year deal and aim for a bigger contract after 2012. Perfect.

Projected salary: $10 million
Projected WAR: 3.0

SP: Hiroki Kuroda
The Yankees reportedly offered Kuroda a one-year, $12 million deal. Sounds good to us.

Projected salary: $12 million
Projected WAR: 2.8

SP: Javier Vazquez
Yes, we are going to force Javy out of his rumored retirement. He had a 2.15 ERA in the second half last season, so he's far from finished.

Projected salary: $10 million
Projected WAR: 2.5

SP: Joe Saunders
The Diamondbacks declined to offer him a contract, making him a free agent. We're not in love with his soft-tossing style, but he's a solid innings eater for the back of the rotation.

Projected salary: $8 million
Projected WAR: 1.8

SP: Paul Maholm
He may be a little expensive for a No. 5 starter, but we like durability in our rotation. He was 6-14 with the Pirates in 2011, but that was a misleading record for a guy with a 3.66 ERA (4.36 career).

Projected salary: $6.25 million
Projected WAR: 1.5

Closer: Ryan Madson
Baseball's most underrated reliever the past few seasons, Madson finally got a chance to close regularly in Philadelphia and did an outstanding job. His changeup is one of the best pitches in the game and we feel we can bring him in for slightly under his rumored asking price.

Projected salary: $9 million
Projected WAR: 1.7

RP: Hong-Chih Kuo
Kuo was unhittable in 2010, holding opponents to a .139 average and one home run in 60 innings, but developed his usual elbow problems in 2011 and had minor surgery after the season. He's a risky signing but with the potential of a big payoff.

Projected salary: $2.5 million
Projected WAR: 1.0

RP: Chad Qualls
A fungible middle reliever, the right-hander got pounded in 2010 but bounced back ... albeit in San Diego, so he's not necessarily a sure thing. But he's a veteran with a rubber arm. He's not as good as Octavio Dotel, who signed for $3.5 million, so we'll sign him for under that.

Projected salary: $2.3 million
Projected WAR: 0.8

RP: Darren Oliver
Doesn't every team need a veteran left-hander? Oliver has now had an ERA under 3.00 four straight seasons.

Projected salary: $2.7 million
Projected WAR: 1.1

RP: Micah Owings
He can be a long man, spot starter or even pinch-hitter!

Projected salary: $1 million
Projected WAR: 0.4

RP: Clay Hensley
After a strong 2010, his control deserted him in 2011 and he walked 30 batters in 67.2 innings and served up nine big ones. But we'll take a flyer to see if he can rediscover his 2010 groove.

Projected salary: $1 million
Projected WAR: 0.5

RP: Jamey Wright
Yes, we could sign Francisco Cordero, but bringing in two closers isn't realistic. Wright is cheap, mediocre and the perfect 11th or 12th guy on a staff.

Projected salary: $900,000
Projected WAR: 0.5

Total payroll: $127.05 million
Projected WAR: 37.0

How good would this team be? A team of replacement-level players would be estimated to win about 48 games, so our team with +37 WAR would be estimated to win about 85 games. Obviously, there's a wide range in there; if everybody stayed healthy and we had some big years, maybe it could win 90. On the other hand, there are a lot of injury risks on this roster, so the downside could be pretty extreme. Plus, there's the simple fact that a $127 million payroll is high -- that's about what the White Sox's payroll was, which ranked fifth in the majors in 2011.

If only we had a few good rookies making the league minimum to supplement the free agents!

Hot Stove season’s already fired up, and we know that the big-name guys are going to get top dollar. However, the vast majority of players aren’t going to get contracts longer than a year or year plus an option, and when the arbitration-eligible players who get non-tendered hit the market later this month, GMs will have an even wider selection of free agents. That expanded supply of free agents won’t help the mid-market talents in their quest for security in terms of contract length and top dollar.

With that in mind, here are five players from baseball’s expanding “middle class” of free agents who will be interesting to follow -- with reasons why -- in the weeks and months to come as the market shapes up.

1. Javier Vazquez, starter. When the top starters on the market include Edwin Jackson, C.J. Wilson and Mark Buehrle, you understand why those with the deepest pockets are interested in Yu Darvish. Beyond them, the market features a huge group of veterans in various states of repair or recovery; Roy Oswalt and Erik Bedard represent the high end in terms of upside.

And then there’s the sporadically ace-worthy but often exasperating Vazquez. Two Bronx blowups and a lot of Windy City frustration suggest he’s not a great fit for homer-happy bandboxes, the DH league in general, and perhaps the AL East in particular. Limiting his market further still, he’s famously unwilling to go to teams out west. But for teams in the NL East or Central looking to get bang for their bucks, it’s worth remembering that over his past 24 starts in 2011, Vazquez posted a 2.70 ERA while holding opponents to .222/.257/.366 and striking out 24 percent of all batters. The tension between his track record for high-profile failure, his geographical wish list, and the shortage of starters on the market make his destination -- for how long and how much -- my most interesting plot to follow this winter.

2. Francisco Rodriguez, closer. The relief market’s packed with alternatives, so single-season saves record or no, K-Rod’s not likely to garner the same attention he got when the Mets handed him a three-year, $37 million deal. Add in his complaints about not closing as a Brewer or the incidents in New York that got him into legal trouble, and there will be some organizations who figure a poor citizenship grade’s going to keep him off their shopping list. But between the opportunity to make a fresh start, still-useful stuff, and his relative youth -- he turns 30 in January -- where he goes and for how much makes him particularly worth following. Much will depend on his willingness to settle sooner rather than later in a market where the best opportunities to rack up saves could dry up fast after Jonathan Papelbon and Heath Bell make their decisions.

3. Jim Thome, DH. Papi’s the big name in the DH free-agent market, and there are just four clearly open DH jobs out there: The job in Boston he’s potentially leaving, plus the Yankees’, Twins’ and Athletics’ DH gigs. The Blue Jays, Mariners, Orioles and Rays might all be in the market, but they don’t have to be if they don’t want to be, creating a very short list of possible venues for veteran batsmen like Vladimir Guerrero, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada. For several guys, the specter of unwilling retirement or a spin in Japan or the Atlantic League looms, but Thome’s choices are limited to one of the very few DH gigs available or getting his clock for Cooperstown ticking.

4. Alex Gonzalez, SS. Say you’re one of the teams who doesn’t get Jose Reyes, Rafael Furcal or Jimmy Rollins. That trio’s already priced out of many teams’ reach, leaving you with… antacid tablets, a review of your farm system’s ability to crank out an alternative, and short-term patches. Gonzalez isn’t going to be this winter’s Marco Scutaro, but if you were looking for a short-term patch to provide defense -- Gonzalez led major league shortstops in Defensive Runs Saved -- and modest sock from the bottom of the order, you could do worse. (Yuniesky Betancourt, anyone?)

5. Grady Sizemore, OF. It wasn’t that long ago that Sizemore was anticipated to be as big a factor in this winter’s market as people named Prince or Pujols. The Indians chucked him into the free-agent pool after deciding that his $9 million option was a bad risk, but the opportunity to see what he could do as a corner outfielder and playing with a creative deal built around his availability to play makes him a fascinating risk to run. The potential that he far outperforms that $9 million valuation is awfully tempting, but everyone knows that -- how far they’re willing to go on guaranteed money, vesting options, or across multiple seasons is what will make Sizemore’s spread of offers perhaps the most variegated of any free agent’s this winter.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. You can follow her on Twitter.

On Wednesday’s Baseball Today podcast with Keith Law and I, there were many kitten noises heard and a lot of good, opinionated baseball talk. Here are some of the issues discussed:

1. The benches empty on yet another late night at Fenway Park, but was it really necessary? Does anyone enjoy seeing relief pitchers run on the field? Oh, and there was a game.

2. NL East leaders pick up some outfield/pinch-hitting help for the postseason, and there could be more moves to come. Is this an indictment on Jason Heyward?

3. Javier Vazquez has been quite the strikeout pitcher in his career, but perhaps you didn’t realize just how good.

4. Angels outfielder Mike Trout will not win top rookie honors this season, but in the big picture does that really matter?

5. Does Keith Law have emotions? OK, discuss.

Plus: Excellent emails, valuing runs scored and being a switch hitter, Ryan Braun’s MVP chances and a closer look at today’s schedule, on a packed edition of Baseball Today! Download now!

Step aside, Yankees-Red Sox and Giants-Dodgers. There is a new most-heated rivalry in baseball. The Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals are no longer just NL Central rivals: They are officially blood enemies.

In closing out the Reds' 9-7 victory over the Cardinals on Sunday -- completing Cincinnati's first three-game sweep over St. Louis since 2007 -- Francisco Cordero hit Albert Pujols with an 0-2 fastball that rode a little far in. Now, the pitch wasn't that far off the plate ... maybe a couple inches. But like so many hitters these days, Pujols crowds the plate, his hands hanging over the black like a couple sides of beef. It was good purpose pitch; and as Cordero said after the game, he wasn't trying to put Pujols on base, not since he represented the tying run ... and Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman were on deck.

But in typical Tony La Russa fashion, the Cardinals starting barking. La Russa wasn't at the game as he was dealing with an eye infection, but his longtime pitching coach Dave Duncan, acting manager Joe Pettini and players on the bench didn't like their star getting hit and started yelling at Cordero. So after Cordero struck out Berkman to end it, he yelled back and pointed to the St. Louis dugout.

"They took offense to it, we took offense to it, and the soap opera continues between these guys," Pettini said. "It's always something when you come in here."

Pujols acknowledged after the game that Cordero wasn't trying to hit him, but this incident comes on the heels of last August's brawl in Cincinnati, when Brandon Phillips and Yadier Molina exchanged pleasantries that led to a bench-clearing brawl in the first inning, a brawl that led St. Louis backup catcher Jason LaRue suffering a severe concussion after getting kicked in the head by Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto.

"I know our guys," La Russa said after that game. "This is not the first time that we've been challenged. You just go up and down our roster -- we've got a bunch of guys that are very tough characters. Like I say, there's times that you beat us, we're not good enough. But you're never going to scare us and we're never going to back down."

That's definitely a typical La Russa response, and a reason his teams are often in the middle of these conflicts. La Russa does seem to believe in a certain code of conduct when it comes to pitching inside -- not that he necessarily follows that code too religiously himself. The Cardinals are second in the NL in hit batters, and while they ranked 13th last season, they're usually in the top half of the league: 13th, 8th, 8th, 3rd, 2nd, 9th, 6th, 7th, 5th and 2nd, going back to 2001.

As for the Reds and Cardinals, the sweep pushed the Reds past St. Louis and into first place. They're 9-2 over their past 11 games as they allowed more than four runs just twice over those 11 games. Scott Rolen returned to the lineup this weekend and went 7-for-15. Drew Stubbs is playing like an All-Star center fielder, hitting .282/.371/.468, with 31 runs and 13 steals in 14 attempts. Their catching duo of Ramon Hernandez and Ryan Hanigan continue to be a secret weapon, combining for eight home runs and 27 RBIs. Reds mananger Dusty Baker seems reluctant to pull the plug on Jonny Gomes, who is down to .186 and doesn't play good defense, in place of Chris Heisey, a solid defender with an .847 OPS so far in 57 at-bats.

As for the rivalry, I think it's the best in baseball. Sure, Jason Varitek and Alex Rodriguez aren't going to dinner together, but the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry has cooled down from its 2003-05 peak. The hate seems to come from the fans than it does the players. The Dodgers and Giants haven't been in a pennant race against each other since 2004. Those two just don't have the animosity and dislike that fuels every Reds-Cardinals game these days.

The Reds and Cardinals next meet July 4 in St. Louis. Think there may be some fireworks?

SERIES OF THE WEEK

Cubs at Red Sox, Friday-Sunday

Friday: Carlos Zambrano (4-1, 4.35) vs. Jon Lester (4-1, 3.28)
Saturday: Matt Garza (2-4, 4.17) vs. Daisuke Matsuzaka (3-3,4.64)
Sunday: Casey Coleman (1-3, 7.22) vs. John Lackey (2-5, 8.01)

The series everyone wanted to see in 2003 will finally happen as the Cubs visit Fenway Park for the first time since the 1918 World Series. The Red Sox won in six games despite hitting .186, as Babe Ruth won two games.

By one measure, Matt Garza has been the third-best pitcher in baseball this season. FanGraphs rates him third in WAR (behind Roy Halladay and Dan Haren), thanks to his 1.61 FIP, which factors in his walk rate (2.9 per nine innings), strikeout rate (11.8 per nine, best in the majors among starting pitchers) and home run rate (one in 49 2/3 innings). What Garza hasn't been doing is eliminating base hits: his .382 average on balls in play is worst in the majors. Has he been unlucky or the victim of bad defense? The Cubs do rank 29th in Defensive Efficiency and 21st in UZR, so he's not getting backed by Gold Glove-caliber defense.

After last Thursday's start, John Lackey uttered the infamous "Everything in my life sucks right now" quote in reference to his bad start and his wife's battle with breast cancer. A disappointment a year ago, Lackey's strikeout/walk ratio has deteriorated to 19/18. His ground ball percentage is a career-low 34 percent (compared to 46 percent over his career). So he's giving fewer ground balls, walking more and striking out fewer. The Red Sox will soon need to consider other rotation options.

PITCHING MATCHUP OF THE WEEK

Thursday: Justin Verlander (4-3, 2.91) vs. Josh Beckett (3-1, 1.75), Tigers at Red Sox

Beckett has allowed 10 runs in eight starts (none in his past three, although one of those was rain-shortened) and opponents are hitting .175 off him. Verlander has not struck out 10 batters in a game this season, but his opponents are batting just .175 off him. Also pay attention to this: Roy Oswalt returns from the DL to face red-hot Jaime Garcia, who is 5-0 with a 1.89 ERA for the Cardinals.

THREE SWINGS

1. One of the biggest disappointments this season has been Reds reliever Aroldis Chapman. He's been so bad that Baker brought him in for mop-up duty with a 9-2 lead in the ninth on Sunday. Chapman walked four of the five hitters he faced, giving him 20 walks in 13 innings. He may throw hard, but right now the Reds need to send him down to Triple-A to see if he can find the strike zone.

2. On a similar note, when do the Marlins pull the plug on Javier Vazquez? He's had a nice career (154 wins), but after another bad start Sunday he's 2-4 with a 7.55 ERA and looks near the end of the road. He has 24 walks and 20 strikeouts in 39 1/3 innings. He's allowed 17 first-inning runs, most in the majors. The Marlins have a good team -- Logan Morrison returned this weekend and showed no ill effects from his DL stint -- but they need more production from the back of their rotation (Vazquez and Chris Volstad). How they replace Vazquez could go a long way towards them staying in the NL East race.

3. Jose Bautista is crazy awesome right now. After hitting three home runs Sunday, he's hitting an insane .368/.520/.868. "It's ridiculous, it feels like a dream right now," Bautista said after his three-homer barrage, which gives him 16 in just 32 games he's played. "Sometimes I can't really believe it myself, but I keep seeing the good pitches." His OPS+ entering Sunday's game was 266 ... which is Barry Bonds territory. Bonds holds the three best OPS+ seasons of all time, led by a 268 mark in 2002. Bautista is the best player in baseball right now.

RANT OF THE WEEK

My editor Nick Pietruszkiewicz makes a guest appearance: "I swear I watched the entire fourth quarter of the Heat-Bulls game in the time it took the Red Sox and Yankees to play a half-inning." And that's saying something since the usual NBA playoff game consists of eight timeouts in the final two minutes. (Of course, that game wasn't close, so I'm guessing the timeouts were avoided.) But that's always the problem with Yankees-Red Sox: Their. Games. Take. Way. Too. Long. Their six games this season have gone 3:07, 3:26, 2:58, 3:35, 3:26 and 3:41. And that's worth ranting about.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

We did it last week. We'll try it again ... a Monday stroll through the stats as we pass the time with no day baseball. (Seriously, Bud, forget worrying about things like expanded playoffs and labor deals ... just get us day baseball, every day, and we'll be much happier.)

• Jose Bautista reached base 11 straight times before finally going hitless (with two walks) on Sunday. He has 19 walks in 18 games and a .506 on-base percentage. Yes, he's for real. By my count, the following players had more walks than games played in a season (minimum 100 games): Barry Bonds (five times), Ted Williams (five times), Babe Ruth (twice), Mark McGwire, Eddie Joost, Mickey Mantle and Jack Clark. Nice company if he can keep it up.
• Is it me, or is Alex Rodriguez quietly having a monster April that seems to be getting little attention? I think I've read more about Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia. Meanwhile, A-Rod is hitting .354/.492/.792. He seems locked in at the plate and the scary thing for pitchers is that he has 14 walks and only six strikeouts. A-Rod's walk rate dropped to 9.9 percent last season, his lowest since 1999.
• Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier have carried the Dodgers so far, but warning to Dodgers fans: The two also rank 1-2 in the majors in BABIP (batting average in balls in play) at .484 and .451, respectively.
• Nice to see the early resurgence from Lance Berkman, leading the NL with a .725 slugging percentage. As bad as Berkman looked with the Yankees last season (one home run in 106 at-bats), it was easy to forget that this guy posted a .906 OPS in 2009 and finished fifth in the MVP vote in 2008.
• Sam Fuld leads the majors with 10 steals, more proof of Joe Maddon installing an aggressive baserunning mentality with the Rays. Fuld had just 23 career steals in the minors. The team with the most steals in the majors, however, is Kansas City, with 30 -- and they've only been caught five times, for an 86 percent success rate. The Royals were eighth in the majors in steals in 2010, but just 20th in success rate at 70 percent.
• Oakland's rotation leads the majors with a 2.20 ERA. The Cubs are last with a ghastly 6.03 mark. Showing how much teams have struggled to generate offense in the AL, the six worst rotation ERAs all belong to NL teams. The worst in the AL: the Yankees, with a 4.62 mark.
• The Marlins lead in bullpen ERA (1.79), lowest batting average allowed (.189) and lowest OPS (.527). Philly's pen has allowed just one home run in 56 innings.
• Alfonso Soriano has six home runs, Tyler Colvin two and nobody else has more than one for the Cubs.
• The Padres are averaging 2.86 runs per game ... no team has averaged less than three runs per game since the '72 Rangers and Angels.
• Pitchers I'm worried about: Madison Bumgarner (10 walks, only nine K's in 17.1 IP), Javier Vazquez (11/16 SO/BB ratio, fastball velocity same as last year, which means down from 2009), Mike Pelfrey (34 hits in 23.2 IP, 12/13 SO/BB ratio).
• From FanGraphs: the Mariners have the worst UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) in the majors at -16.6 runs. Jack Wilson, Brendan Ryan, Ichiro Suzuki, Milton Bradley and Ryan Langerhans all with bad ratings. So not only can four of those guys not hit, now they can't field either. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2011 Seattle Mariners!

The Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves are heavy favorites in the NL East, while the Washington Nationals are still building and the New York Mets have some talent but are generally a mess. The Florida Marlins have won 84, 87 and 80 games during the last three seasons. Could they be the NL wild card, if not the division champions?

The Marlins traded Dan Uggla to Atlanta, a severe hit offensively given that they are replacing him with Omar Infante (who I presume is keeping second base warm until Osvaldo Martinez is called up). They signed John Buck to be their catcher, stabilizing a position that’s been a concern for Florida for the last half-decade.

Mike Stanton and Logan Morrison will each get a full season’s worth of playing time, adding to a young core that includes Gaby Sanchez and Hanley Ramirez (hard to believe he’s only 27). Chris Coghlan, recovering from knee surgery, will take a crack at center field. He’s already moved from second base to left field (and handled it fairly well), but the move to center is even more difficult, especially coming off a leg injury. With these five, the core is young and talented, with room yet to improve.

In the rotation, Josh Johnson leads the way; over the last two seasons, he’s posted a 2.80 ERA that matches a sparkling 2.76 FIP. A big-time groundball pitcher, his home ballpark also helps him keep the ball in the park.

The talented trio of Ricky Nolasco (28), Chris Volstad (24) and Anibal Sanchez (26) follows Johnson, and the Marlins added Javier Vazquez on a one-year deal. If he can find what made him great in 2009, when he was one of the top three or four pitchers in the National League (and I think it was just more than moving to the American League), the Marlins will run out an above-average starter every day. Additionally, two Florida trades this winter included bullpen arms coming back. Ryan Webb, Edward Mujica, and Mike Dunn all figure to strengthen the bullpen in front of Leo Nunez.

Even with their additions, the Marlins need their young talent to get better. It might seem like an obvious statement, but those young players are also their best players, and they’ll need to become elite quickly if the Marlins are going to compete in September.

For the past few seasons (since the trade of Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis), it has seemed like the Marlins have been building for the future. That future could be here soon, just as soon as the stars-to-be become stars right now.

Dan Hennessey writes Baseballin' on a Budget, a blog about the Oakland Athletics. Follow him on Twitter @DanHennessey31.

From a recent edition of Hey Bill (subscriber-only):

Bill, As a Marlin fan I like the new acquistion of Javier Vazquez. My question to you is Vazquez lost a few MPH last year off his pitches. Barring an unknown injury that caused the MPH drop off is it common for pitchers his age to lose a few MPH than gain it back the next year? 2009 He was damn good. I figure a part of his 2010 problems had to have been his mental make up playing in NY but is it possible he could regain some MPH next season in Fla?

Asked by: Anonymous
Answered: November 29, 2010

It is NOT common for pitchers who lose velocity to regain it, no. It is common for pitchers who lose velocity to adjust their pitch selection, adjust their approach, and come out of it as effective pitchers -- but it is not common for the velocity to come back after the age of 30.

And Vazquez is well after the age of 30, turns 35 in the middle of next summer.

In the absence of supporting data, I'm never quite sure if Bill is telling us something he knows, or something he merely believes. He does know a lot of things, and I think sometimes he expects us to just take his word for it. In this particular case, I was at least a little skeptical. Which is why I particularly appreciated Dave Cameron's take on pitchers who lose their fastballs:

Any hope for Vazquez to return to prior form has to begin with the idea that his velocity will return to previous levels, or at least bounce back enough to allow him to succeed with the same gameplan he has used throughout his career. And, unfortunately for Vazquez and the Marlins, history doesn’t suggest that is likely.

For reference, here’s a list of starting pitchers who experienced velocity drops of 1+MPH from 2008 to 2009, and their corresponding 2010 “bounce back” velocities ...

The list is not a pretty picture for Vazquez optimists. The three guys who experienced similarly sized velocity drops didn’t get any of the prior oomph on their fastballs back, and in the case of Lincecum and Young, velocity continued to erode. The only two guys who got back near their previous levels are Slowey and Weaver, who had the smallest loss of velocity to begin with.

Actually, what's striking about the list of pitchers -- which I left out, due to formatting considerations -- is how small it is; apparently it's actually quite rare for a starting pitcher to lose even one full mile an hour off his fastball from one season to the next.

Cameron's looking at fastballs, not performance, and doesn't draw any conclusions about pitchers learning to pitch effectively after losing a mile or two off their fastballs. There's no obvious reason why Vazquez can't be decent while throwing 89 miles an hour. On the other hand, if that was easy you'd think he'd have done it last season as a Yankee.

Paying him $7 million in hopes that his fastball comes back or he learns to pitch without it seems like a risk. Maybe not a huge risk, because $7 million isn't a great deal of money, and if Vazquez improves just a little they can probably flip him in July for a prospect.

It is a risk, though.

Why will the Brewers contend in 2011?

1. The Brewers have already patched up their bullpen.
On opening day, the Brewers' bullpen contained (among others) Trevor Hoffman and Claudio Vargas. After two awful starts, Jeff Suppan joined this awful duo. Those three all had ERAs above 6.90 in April and May, and they combined for a stunning minus-2.96 WPA – mostly via Hoffman and his five blown saves, but also from the general incompetence of the trio. That means that this group was three wins worse than merely average relievers.

Since then, Hoffman has been replaced as closer by John Axford, Suppan has been replaced in the rotation by Chris Narveson and in the bullpen by Kameron Loe. Zach Braddock has taken the role of top lefty from Mitch Stetter (a middling-at-best LOOGY who was utterly incompetent against RHB). Vargas’s low-leverage innings have been split between players like Chris Capuano, who is an interesting project if nothing else, and David Riske, who is merely biding the time until his contract expires.

Axford, Braddock, and Loe have been fantastic since joining the Brewers, combining for plus-2.22 WPA in their time on the team, largely coming after Jeff Suppan’s June 7 release. All three will be under team control next year, making them near locks to be important bullpen pieces next season, added to relievers Carlos Villanueva and Todd Coffey.

2. The Brewers have a favorable payroll situation.
With the toxic contracts of Jeff Suppan, Bill Hall, and others coming off the books, the Brewers will shed roughly $45 million in contracts after this season. After arbitration raises, I estimate that the Brewers will be about $25 million below the 2010 opening day payroll, even if Prince Fielder remains a Brewer. That means they'll have some money to play with.

The Brewers aren't losing much, either. The only important player from 2010 who's on his way out is Jim Edmonds, but he can be replaced in-house by either Carlos Gomez or Lorenzo Cain. At every other position, the Brewers are solid. CHONE's August update projects the Brewers with one above-average player (+2.0 WAR per 150 games) at each position.

That means the Brewers can spend most, if not all, of that "extra" $25 million on their weakness: starting pitching. The market this winter isn't great, but Javier Vazquez, Brandon Webb, Ted Lilly, Jon Garland (likely to decline his mutual option), Jake Westbrook, and Kevin Millwood, among others, are all interesting options. Perhaps a better move would be to use some of that cash to deal with a team like the Marlins, who might attempt to move Ricky Nolasco's high arbitration award in the offseason. They could also trade Prince Fielder for pitching, as Mat Gamel could step in and likely be an average first baseman. For the right pitcher, trading Fielder could actually make the Brewers better in 2011.

The roster certainly isn't perfect, but much of it is returning and there's money to fix the holes.

3. The NL Central is weak.
St. Louis has a good team this year, certainly, but it's not without its holes. Perennial All-Stars Albert Pujols, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, and Matt Holliday form an excellent core, but there are question marks after those four players. The back of the rotation has struggled mightily, as the Cardinals have attempted patches with Blake Hawksworth and Jeff Suppan, eventually trading Ryan Ludwick away for Jake Westbrook. Losing Ludwick, one of the better right fielders in the NL, will hurt next year, and Westbrook will be a free agent. They also lose Brad Penny, who has been injured much of the year, and Felipe Lopez, who was an absolute steal in last year's free-agent market. The Cardinals have played like an 89-win team this season according to Beyond the Box Score's power rankings (looking at cW%). They have a modest amount of money to spend this year, but they are losing enough to the point where I wouldn't feel comfortable projecting any sort of major increase, especially given that St. Louis's top financial priority will be locking up Albert Pujols past 2011, the last year of his current contract.

The Cincinnati Reds have played about as well as the Cardinals so far this year, but there's really only one word to describe why I'm not super high on this team heading into next year: regression. Will Scott Rolen continue to be a power threat in his mid 30s? Is Mike Leake a sub-4.00 ERA pitcher despite skipping the minor leagues? Is Arthur Rhodes really one of the best left-handed relief pitchers in baseball? I'm inclined to say "no" to all of these questions. There's enough young talent on this Reds team to still be solid next season, and they might add Aroldis Chapman to the mix as well, and they won't have Edinson Volquez recovering from Tommy John surgery for half a season. That said, there's no reason to believe that the Reds are anything more than an 89-win team themselves, and simple regression says that we should expect something closer to 86 or 87.

4. "Contending" doesn't mean favorites.
The favorites to win the division next year will be, barring the unforeseen, Cincinnati and St. Louis, in some order and for good reason. However, they're not elite teams, and given the crazy things that can happen during the course of the season, they could each just as easily end up as .500 squads as 95-win teams. The Brewers look like a true talent 81-win team right now. They've played .519 baseball since releasing Suppan, and that's just above what the Beyond the Boxscore rankings expect (a .505 cW percent). I would feel pretty confident calling the roster on hand an 81-win team for next season.

The Brewers had a similar projection opening the season last year, and were given playoff odds of about 17 percent by Baseball Prospectus prior to the season. With the money available to plug holes in the rotation, the Brewers can definitely make themselves a preseason contender (say, 30-40 percent playoff odds) prior to the season, even if they're not favorites.

Jack Moore writes about the Brewers at Disciples of Uecker, a member of ESPN.com's SweetSpot Network.

Have Jason Bay and Javier Vazquez succumbed to the pressure of playing in New York? Dave Cameron isn't buying it:

Bay is hitting .308/.406/.508 at Citi Field, but just .246/.333/.333 on the road. He has twice as many extra base hits in front of those frustrated fans as he does in front of ambivalent road crowds. If he was hitting as well away from New York as he was at home, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

The same is true of Vazquez, though not to the same extent. He is posting a 4.48 xFIP at home versus 4.72 on the road, with neither number representing his previous abilities. The same was true in 2004, when Vazquez pitched better in Yankee Stadium than he did away from the Bronx.

Sometimes a slump is just a slump. Guys slump in New York just like they do in Milwaukee, San Diego, or St. Louis. Perhaps we should avoid slagging a guy’s intestinal fortitude when he is performing better in front of the same fans and media that are supposed to be scaring him into a slump.

The most famous "can't handle the New York pressure" Yankee is probably Ed Whitson.

Yet oddly (or not), he too actually did better in New York than on the road. In 1985, his first season with the Yankees, he posted a 4.08 ERA (and an excellent strikeout-to-walk ratio) in a dozen Yankee Stadium starts, but didn't pitch nearly as well in 18 road starts.

In '86, Whitson started only four games (and relieved in 10) before getting traded to the Padres, his previous team (and for whom he continued to struggle, not really finding his game again until 1988).

I don't mean to suggest that Whitson wasn't rattled by the pressure in New York. He's admitted as much, particularly in the first couple of months of his first season there.

I don't mean to suggest that different players don't react in different ways to different environments. They are not (as I've been reminded a few times over the years) robots. But sometimes a slump is just a slump. Or an injury. Or elementary regression. And I find particularly laughable the notion that Jason Bay can't handle New York ... as if there's not immense pressure to perform in Boston, where Bay just came off one of his best seasons.

You can’t hide in New York. Not if you're a baseball player. This is taken as fact, same as the assumption that LeBron James will be a Knick, that Glen Sather will never be fired and that empires may fall, but the Jets will still find a way to lose the game.

The city exudes baseball -- from TVs in store windows, David Wright smiling from the sides of city buses, Mariano Rivera in his pinstripe Canali jacket. The lights shine brighter here -- we know where our team’s athletes eat, where they sleep, where they party. It’s splashed across our collective consciousness, viewed on YouTube, shouted on the radio, crumpled under train seats on Metro North. And some athletes can’t handle it. Some of the best, even.

As long as I can remember, there’s always been at least one player on the Yankees who the fans think just can’t hack it here. These days, Javier Vazquez is the target.

See, New Yorkers have a long memory. We remember all the wins, but we also remember the losses, and for most Yankee fans, 2004 comes down to one thing:

Johnny Damon, with the bases loaded, versus Javier Vazquez.

Never mind that the other guys in pinstripes had lost three games previously or that Kevin Brown was in the dugout contemplating Seppuku after his terrible start; Vazquez was and remains the scapegoat eternal.

And now, in 2010, Vazquez has been the lone dark spot in the Yankees' rotation. Any recitation of pitching statistics includes the obligatory phrase, “without Vazquez ...”

So the Yankees should trade Vazquez, right?

Nope.

Many of the folks writing in this space Thursday and today have been writing about the player on their team who needs to go -- why, how, and to be replaced by whom. It’d be too easy to write that story for Vazquez. Too easy, too consensus, and more importantly, downright incorrect.

Javier Vazquez doesn’t need to go anywhere. Unless he’s supped from the cup of sudden aging (a possibility, no doubt), he’ll not only be fine over the rest of this season -- he’ll be one of the Yankees best pitchers.

Last season, Javy smoked the National League -- 2nd by FIP, 2nd by K/BB, 7th by ERA, 1st by xFIP, 4th in swinging strike rate inside the zone (17.1%!). Despite what you’re probably thinking right now, he wasn’t just lucky. He didn’t benefit from a crazy LOB%, nor an extremely low BABIP, nor a lower than normal HR/FB rate.

This year, he hasn’t had nearly as much success getting batters to swing and miss in the zone, generating whiffs on only 11.5% of such pitches. Combine that with terrible luck -- an abnormally low LOB%, high BABIP, and the highest HR/FB rate of his career (by a long ways), and you’ve got a recipe for badness.

Against the Tigers on Wednesday, we saw signs of life. Vazquez struck out seven batters, giving up only five hits and two walks. Along the way, he mustered 16 swinging strikes -- 12 of which were in the zone, and the majority of which came on his fastball. This, against a team that doesn’t swing and miss a whole lot—the Tigers are 7th in baseball when it comes to contact on pitches in the zone, and 6th best at hitting fastballs (by wFB/C from fangraphs.com).

The last four years, Javier Vazquez has been 4th, 10th, 8th, and 9th in baseball at generating whiffs on pitches in the zone. And there’s nothing better for a pitcher than a swing and a miss on such a pitch -- it’s a strike whether or not the batter offers at it (assuming the umpire is willing to play along). The day Javy loses the ability to generate those whiffs, he’ll have to evolve or retire -- but as he showed us on Wednesday, that day isn’t here yet. He won’t match his numbers from 2009 -- he is a year older, and he’s pitching in the AL. But once his HR/FB, LOB% and BABIP revert, he’ll still be in the upper quintile of MLB pitchers, and by far the best No. 4 pitcher in baseball.

New Yorkers have a grudge six years in the making when it comes to Vazquez, but a few more starts like Wednesday’s, and once again Brian Cashman will show us all he knows a thing or two about building a baseball team.

Rebecca Glass contributed to this article. Her writing can be found here.

Craig on some questionable behavior in the Bronx Wednesday, spurred by Javier Vazquez's less-than-brilliant outing:

And to be clear: the boos weren't merely a function of him leaving in the sixth inning after giving up a couple of hits and a wild pitch: they started in the first inning. A fan at the game tweets that fans were chanting "we want Melky" in the third inning.

I'm not the only one who thinks the fans were out of line either. The River Ave. Blues guys -- Yankees fans all -- were embarrassed by it. The Post's Mike Vaccaro noted the poor form as well. And it is poor form. The man has started two games this year. These boos are almost certainly a function of people thinking back to 2004, which is amazingly weak given that, you know, the team just won the World Series five months ago. For a fan base that fancies itself so much more knowledgeable than anyone else's, this was pretty bad.

Anyone care to defend the boo-birds here?

Sure. I'll take a crack at it. Sort of.

Passion cuts both ways, right? When I was younger and Kansas won a big basketball game, I was over the moon; when it lost a big one, I might grab a baseball bat and whale away at some innocent tree for a few minutes. When the Royals beat the Yankees in 1980, I was the happiest kid in Kansas City. When the Yankees beat the Royals in 1977, there was a salty discharge from my eyes.

I'm not that passionate about my teams anymore, and I'm glad; there's something a little ridiculous about sulking for hours because a bunch of massive people wearing purple shirts lost to a bunch of massive people wearing black shirts. But I do miss that passion, a little.

And I admire it in others. One thing about passionate sports fans: they tend to have long and intense memories. My first visit to Fenway Park was in the fall of 1999. The Orioles were in town. In one of the games, Jesse Orosco trotted in from the bullpen. The Red Sox fans booed.

I couldn't figure this out. What had Jesse Orosco ever done to them?

Eventually I realized that they must have been booing Orosco because he'd been on the mound when the Mets clinched the 1986 World Series. Thirteen years earlier.

Granted, six years isn't 13, but I'm still impressed with the intensity of the Yankee fans' collective memory.

Intelligence is something else entirely. I know a lot of Yankees fans, and most of them are actually sort of brilliant. They're probably not the ones who were booing Vazquez. Because boy, that sure is a stupid thing to do. Umm, guys? Vazquez is going to pull in $11.5 million this season. He's not going anywhere. Wouldn't smart fans -- even fans with long, intense memories -- figure that maybe, just maybe, reminding Vazquez of his awful second half in 2004 isn't the best way to start 2010?

Catching up after a couple of days out of touch, and was surprised by the Yankees trading for Javier Vazquez, who did not pitch well in his previous stint with the club. First thing I did was look for It's About the Money (Stupid)'s take ...

Yanks fans might remember Javy serving up a nail-in-the-coffin grand slam to Johnny Damon in Game Seven of the 2004 ALCS. They'd be better off remembering that he's struck out 1,027 batters over the last five years since he left. As well as pitching at least 198 innings every year since 1999 when he started only 26 games in Montreal.

With that, let's go back to 2004 and take a deeper look at Vaz's monthly splits as clearly there was something wrong with him in the second half (Mark Feinsand claims that Vazquez was indeed hurt in the 2nd half of 2004, although Tyler Kepner, back in 2008, said that Vaz wasn't hurt at all and it was simply mechanics.

--snip--

For Melky Cabrera and two prospects (one who is really highly regarded), this is a steal for the Yanks. Yet, it's being said that the Braves got more from the Yanks in this deal than the Phillies got for Cliff Lee ... which made me chuckle.

As of now, this trade means two things:

1. What budget limit of $185 million?

2. Gardner becomes the starting left fielder (or, if the Yanks were aggressive: they'd consider Gardner in center and Granderson in left)

Will the Yanks completely blow up their budget and go after Holliday now? Who knows?

Try to forget 2004. I am trying like mad. Recognize the benefits of this trade and be happy as a Yanks fan.

Vazquez's single season as a Yankee was widely seen as a failure, and it was a failure despite his 14-10 record. So I was surprised to discover that Vazquez's only All-Star season was 2004. And yes, that happened because Vazquez actually pitched quite well before the All-Star Game: 10-5, 3.56 ERA, 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. But a switch didn't get flipped during the All-Star break. Vazquez pitched fairly well for another few weeks. On August 6, he ran his record to 13-6 (and still had a 4.12 ERA). What ruined his season were his last nine starts, when he went 1-4 with a 7.30 ERA. And he got blasted in his three postseason outings, too.

But whether it was an injury or mechanics or just a spot of bad luck, the point is that there's little evidence to suggest that Vazquez struggled because he couldn't handle pitching in New York. If that was the case, wouldn't it have showed up before August?

Vazquez will not duplicate his 2009 performance in 2010. He was one of the three or four best pitchers in the National League, and probably won't be one of the 10 best pitchers in the American League. But of course he doesn't need to be. Instead he'll probably be the best No. 4 starter in the majors, which is all the Yankees need him to be. Happy, as a Yanks fan? I would be deliriously ecstatic.

It's just one year. I'm not quite ready to declare that the paradigm has shifted.

As I wrote a few months ago, Bill James' method to predict Cy Young Awards has always worked quite well, even in recent seasons. The only caveat is that the Predictor really doesn't know how to handle relief pitchers, for the simple reason that Cy Young voters have never demonstrated any sort of consistency with relief pitchers.

When it comes to starters, though? The Predictor has been good. Really good.

But not this year.

This year, the Predictor gave Felix Hernandez a sizable edge over Zack Greinke, who won only 16 games and didn't pitch for a winning team. Nevertheless, Greinke garnered 25 first-place votes; Hernandez got two.

Still, one example doesn't prove anything, and it seemed apparent that Greinke was going to win. As I wrote earlier this week, Greinke just had that certain (if indefinable) buzz.

What happened in the National League is a completely different thing.

Where Greinke finished the season second on the Predictor list, Lincecum finished fourth. And more relevantly, third among starters. And not just third; a deep third. While Zack Attack finished 14 points behind King Felix, Lincecum finished 15 points behind Chris Carpenter and 26 points behind Adam Wainwright.

And yet Lincecum, who won four fewer games than Wainwright and posted a higher ERA than Carpenter while not pitching for a postseason team, won the Cy Young Award. It's been at least 10 years since anything remotely like this has happened.

Granted, Lincecum didn't run away with the award. He actually picked up 11 first-place votes to Wainwright's 12. It seems likely that if Wainwright had managed to win 20 games -- and remember how close he came! -- he would have won the award, because we can guess that at least a few voters still believe there's a big difference between winning 19 games and winning 20.

Still, I think we're in the midst of a sea change, due in some small part to the BBWAA opening its doors, however slightly, to non-traditional writers (and voters). We know that Keith Law participated in the National League Cy Young balloting. Anyone care to guess who he voted for?

Meanwhile, I'm ready to nominate for sainthood the only voter who gave Javier Vazquez his only support, a second-place vote (unless this was an Atlanta voter, in which case I must regrettably chalk it up to the typical provincialism).

Update: Keith Law, consider yourself nominated.

OK, class: Raise your hand if you tagged Adam Wainwright as a Cy Young candidate before this season.

Wainwright

No? Me, neither. Yet here he is. From Tuesday night's AP game story:

Adam Wainwright became the National League's first 15-game winner. He also took the team lead, at least for a few days.

Wainwright worked eight innings of three-hit ball and Albert Pujols' rare hit off Wandy Rodriguez drove in the lone run in the St. Louis Cardinals' 1-0 victory over the Houston Astros on Tuesday night.

Wainwright (15-7) matched the Yankees' CC Sabathia for the major league victory lead, and moved ahead of Chris Carpenter (14-3) for staff honors.

"Golly, I've got to put my sprinting shoes on to stay ahead of him," Wainwright said. "That's good, I like the push. The whole rotation, we just keep going out there and feeding off each other."

(When's the last time you heard a Major League Baseball player say golly?)

Granted, Wainwright did go 11-3 last season, with a 3.20 ERA. But he missed a big chunk of the season with a finger injury and his underlying performance didn't suggest anything quite like this. But he's upped his strikeout rate and continues to be exceptionally stingy with the home runs -- which is true of all the St. Louis' starters, and is a key to their collective success -- and Wainwright now must be considered among the half-dozen or so best starters in the National League.

Is he the best, though? Well, I think you'd take Tim Lincecum (to name just one stalwart) before Wainwright. Still, I'm wondering if Wainwright might actually win the Cy Young Award this season.

At the moment, I see only five viable candidates. Remember, there are really only two ways to win: 1) win a lot of games, or 2) pitch brilliantly. Do both, and you'll probably win. Do neither, and you've got no chance. You've also got no chance if you pitch brilliantly but don't win more than 15 games. Javier Vazquez has pitched brilliantly for the Braves, but he's just 10-9 so he's simply not a viable candidate.

Our five viable candidates, then, are Wainwright (15-7, 2.50), Carpenter (14-3, 2.16), Tim Lincecum (12-4, 2.43), Matt Cain (12-4, 2.39) and Dan Haren (12-8, 2.73). Haren's obviously a long shot, since his record and his ERA are both less impressive than those of his competition. But Haren's strikeout-to-walk ratio is easily the best in the league, and that might carry some weight if he finishes with 17 or 18 wins.

Which he probably won't. Haren will probably start six, maybe seven more games. While he could win all or almost all of them, he probably will not. Same goes for the other guys. Especially teammates Lincecum and Cain. As they know only too well, the Giants are 13th in the NL in scoring, which has led to a number of no-decisions for their two aces. Each would be lucky to reach even 17 wins, and no starting pitcher has won a Cy Young Award in a full season with fewer than 17 wins.

In fact, only two starters have won a Cy Young with 17 wins: Randy Johnson in 1999 and Pedro Martinez in 1997.

Martinez couldn't match Greg Maddux's 19-4 record and his ERA wasn't much better than Maddux's. But his ERA began with a 1 (1.90), which presumably impressed the voters. As did his 305 strikeouts (to Maddux's 177). Surprisingly (to me, anyway), the balloting wasn't even close, with Pedro picking up 25 of 28 first-place votes.

Two years later, Johnson beat out Mike Hampton in a significantly closer vote, taking 20 first-place votes to Hampton's 11 (inexplicably, Kevin Millwood got the other). Johnson went 17-9 and Hampton went 22-4, but Johnson's ERA was half a run lower and (most critically, I suspect) he struck out more than twice as many batters as Hampton.

So, yes: It can be done. But it would take something extraordinary for a 17-game winner to win the award. It's not likely that Cain will do anything extraordinary, because (frankly) he's not an extraordinary pitcher. Not extraordinarily so, anyway.

Lincecum, on the other hand, certainly is extraordinary, as we saw last year when he won 18 games and beat out 22-game-winner Brandon Webb for the Cy Young in something of a landslide. Lincecum's going to strike out just as many hitters this year, walk fewer, and perhaps post an even lower ERA. He's got a shot, if his teammates score some runs for him.

My money's on Carpenter or Wainwright, though. Carpenter's got a lower ERA than Lincecum and a better record. Wainwright's also got a better record, and just a slightly higher ERA. What's more, the Cardinals have a pretty good offense. The one x-factor is Carpenter's injury; he missed five weeks in April and May, and has pitched considerably fewer innings than his competition. Then again, maybe the voters will give him a few points of extra credit for coming back so strong.

Update: As a reader points out, Brandon Webb won the Cy Young Award in 2006 despite winning only 16 games (a fact that I forgot, and somehow missed today even though I double-checked, or tried to). Of course, that was one freaky season, as no National League pitcher won more than 16 games. That might someday happen again. But 16 wins isn't going to be enough for a Cy Young this season.

From a few days ago, George Bretherton on the AL's best pitchers:

Who says it's a two-horse race for this season's American League Cy Young Award?
 
Kansas City's Zack Greinke (8 wins, 1.72 E.R.A.) and Toronto's Roy Halladay (10 wins, 2.53 E.R.A.) deserve front-runner status, but indications are that the field for the A.L. award will be crowded.

Three other starters -- Detroit's Edwin Jackson, Anaheim's Jered Weaver and Seattle's Erik Bedard -- have E.R.A.'s under 2.50, and could make a summer charge.

From off the pace, Detroit's Justin Verlander (9.00 E.R.A. after four starts) and Boston's Josh Beckett (7.22 E.R.A. after five starts) are moving into contention. Verlander (7-0, 1.10 E.R.A. since April 27) was so good in Wednesday's 2-1 complete-game win over the White Sox that Chicago's John Danks raved about Verlander's "almost PlayStation stuff."

Remember when Zack Greinke was obviously the best pitcher in the universe? Players do have a tendency to regress to their mean, though. After Wednesday night's game, Greinke's ERA is 1.96 (and it would be 2.05 if not for an exceptionally questionable scoring decision). After allowing two or fewer runs in each of his first 10 starts, Greinke has given up four, seven, three and six runs in his last four starts.

Overall, Greinke's still got the best numbers in the American League. But if we consider recent trends (though not so much) and less-recent history (much), we have to figure that Verlander and Halladay -- assuming he comes back quickly from his injury -- will be in the mix, and I wouldn't discount the chances of Felix Hernandez or Beckett, either (not to mention dark horses like Kevin Slowey, who's got nine wins already).

Greinke hasn't pitched all that bad in his recent starts. He's just been a little less lucky and a little less sharp -- last night he somehow managed to walk Chris Young twice -- and he's gotten little support from his relatively untalented teammates. He is among the best pitchers in the league, but I now consider him a real underdog for the Cy Young, if only because he's not likely to get much run support the rest of the way.

Meanwhile, in the National League, Tim Lincecum's making a serious bid to win his second straight award, though he too will have to cope with lousy run support from his mates. If that doesn't work out, Chad Billingsley's a solid candidate. And then there's Dan Haren and Javier Vazquez, both enjoying brilliant seasons but with only nine wins between them.