ESPN MLB

Last year, You Can't Predict Baseball came up with bold predictions for the year. We had a lot of fun coming up with them, and then laughing at how hilariously wrong they were at the end of the year. This year, we're bringing these predictions to SweetSpot, along with explanations for some of them. Keep in mind, these predictions are supposed to be bold, but not insane -- even we know the Orioles aren't going to the playoffs in 2012.

Los Angeles Angels: Kendrys Morales stays healthy all year.

Houston Astros: Bud Norris is top five in K/9 in the NL. We figured something good had to happen to the Astros, right? Norris actually has a pretty nice career K/9.

Oakland Athletics: Yoenis Cespedes is their starting center fielder by Memorial Day.

Toronto Blue Jays: Brandon Morrow makes the jump to elite starting pitcher. He's struck out more than 10 batters per 9 innings two years running, though his ERAs have remained ugly. We think this is the year his results finally match the stuff, especially considering his declining walk rate.

Atlanta Braves: Julio Teheran has more wins than Tim Hudson.

Milwaukee Brewers: Rickie Weeks leads the team in home runs. He was fourth on the team last year, with 20. In front of him were Corey Hart with 26, Ryan Braun with 33, and Prince Fielder with 38. Fielder is gone, and for this prediction we'll assume Braun will miss a third of the year due to a suspension. It's not too bold to think Weeks could pass Hart in 2012.

St. Louis Cardinals: Carlos Beltran outproduces Albert Pujols from last year. Albert Pujols was great last year, but not quite best-player-of-his-generation Albert Pujols. If healthy, it's not absurd to think of Beltran outproducing Pujols' 5.1 WAR in 2011.

Chicago Cubs: Matt Garza isn't their best pitcher. It'll be Ryan Dempster, who had great peripherals but bad results last year.

Arizona Diamondbacks: Aaron Hill will be good again. He was great with them in limited time, and Arizona's park is quite hitter-friendly.

Los Angeles Dodgers: James Loney will be a top-three first baseman in the National League. Many thanks to Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness for somewhat alerting us to this one. We just decided to take it semi-absurdly far.

San Francisco Giants: Madison Bumgarner is their best pitcher. In terms of ERA, he already wasn't very far behind Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum, and his K/BB ratio eclipsed theirs by quite a bit.

Cleveland Indians: They'll have the best pitching in the American League Central. We're banking on Ubaldo Jimenez, making a major comeback to something closer to what he was in 2010, and the rest of the staff displaying the good that they did in 2011. We're also counting on the Tigers' starters not being very impressive behind Justin Verlander, which is bold but not quite insane, and the pitching of the White Sox, Twins and Royals not being able to keep up with Cleveland's.

Seattle Mariners: Jesus Montero catches 100-plus games. The Mariners probably aren't going to compete, so why not try and play him where he'll accrue the most value?

Miami Marlins: Despite all their new acquisitions and the hype, they still finish fourth in the NL East. When you think about it, this one isn't so crazy. If Josh Johnson isn't healthy and maybe even if he is their pitching still trails that of Philadelphia, Washington, and Atlanta; even with Heath Bell, we don't think their bullpen is as good, either. Their offense might be better than some of those teams', but the Marlins were quite a bit below league average offensively last year and we're not sure how much Jose Reyes is going to make up for that.

New York Mets: Mike Pelfrey is the worst starter in the NL. Pelfrey's been pretty terrible two of the past three years, and now they're moving the fences in at Citi Field. He was far better in his huge home stadium, but we're guessing with the moved-in walls he'll be significantly worse at Citi. Here at YCPB, we actually don't think the Mets are going to be quite as dire as many are saying, even if they do come in last place in the NL East - but Pelfrey won't be a bright spot.

Washington Nationals: Stephen Strasburg has a 17-strikeout game.

Baltimore Orioles: Matt Wieters is the best catcher in the AL. A lot of people are so obsessed with Wieters not matching the hype that they didn't notice he became a plus offensive performer last year, to go along with very good defense. His taking the next step isn't that bold as predictions go, especially if Joe Mauer has to move off catcher.

San Diego Padres: Luke Gregerson is a top-three closer in the NL.

Philadelphia Phillies: Cole Hamels is their best starter. And this isn't meant to be a slight to Roy Halladay or Cliff Lee, but considering their ages and the fact that Hamels is pretty darn good himself, plus a possible boost from a contract year...

Pittsburgh Pirates: Charlie Morton is their All-Star.

Texas Rangers: Yu Darvish isn't their best starter -- but he's still good. And we think he'll be pretty good, we just think Derek Holland will become more consistently good, or Matt Harrison will put up numbers like his 2011.

Tampa Bay Rays: James Shields will have no complete games. Predicting someone to have no complete games might not seem bold, but it is when it's a guy who was known as "Complete Game James" last season. Shields did have 11 complete games in 2011, an almost unheard-of number these days, but he had no complete games in 2009 or 2010.

Boston Red Sox: No one hits 30 home runs. This might seem crazy when you consider their great offensive numbers last year, but only one player on their team hit 30 home runs and it was Jacoby Ellsbury with 32.

Cincinnati Reds: Brandon Phillips is the best second baseman in the NL.

Colorado Rockies: Jamie Moyer will have the best HR/9 on the staff.

Kansas City Royals: They reach .500. While their pitching won't be great, their offense will take a big step forward this year. Combined with the rest of their division being the Tigers and some dumpster fires, it's not that difficult to see it happening.

Detroit Tigers: They score fewer runs than they did in 2011. Yes, that’s even with Fielder. It's not improbable that Jhonny Peralta, Alex Avila and Delmon Young regress quite a bit from their numbers with Detroit last year, and that Prince Fielder's production "only" makes up for the offensive loss of Victor Martinez in 2012. They'll still have a very good offense, though.

Minnesota Twins: Joe Mauer hits 15 home runs.

Chicago White Sox: Robin Ventura gets ejected more times than Ozzie Guillen. Look at the state of the White Sox. We'd get ejected too.

New York Yankees: Hiroki Kuroda leads the team in ERA.

You Can't Predict Baseball is an affiliate of the SweetSpot network.

J.C. Bradbury mounts a (half-hearted) defense of the Jayson Werth deal, and Beyond the Boxscore fisks the defense. BtB's big finish:

Perhaps there are a lot of fantastic reasons that contract got so high, but I think the crowd has this one right. It doesn't matter if they eventually get what they paid for (unless you're a Nats fan), the problem is that they paid more than the market was willing to currently bear, and in so doing have somewhat upset the balance of the entire Winter Meetings and every contract after this. It may eventually look like a fair deal, but it's a bad contract now.

I've heard this argument before, that this contract or that contract will "upset the balance" of future contracts (if not the entire space/time continuum).

I'm not so sure.

Ryan Howard's five-year, $125 million extension was supposed to upset the balance, but I'm not sure that it has. Adam Dunn, 10 days older than Howard and of similar value, just signed a four-year deal for $56 million.

Barry Zito's seven-year, $126 million contract was supposed to upset the balance, but I'm not sure that it has. If it had, you would see lots of league-average pitchers earning $18 million per season.

Some contracts, I'm sure, do make a difference. It's logical for Albert Pujols' agent to use Alex Rodriguez's contract as a negotatiating tool. It's logical for Cliff Lee's agent to use CC Sabathia's and Johan Santana's contracts as negotiating tools.

But if you're representing a player like Jayson Werth, and you run around saying your guy has to get $126 million because Jayson Werth got $126 million, you'll get laughed out of the room. As Werth's deal proves, it takes only one. But that doesn't mean there are two.

It's not easy to come up with something that hasn't already been said about this deal, particularly considering that everyone's pretty much saying the same thing. Everyone except Nationals GM Mike Rizzo, anyway:

Nationals manager Jim Riggleman, who didn't know the deal had been finalized until just before it was announced, was the Dodgers bench coach while Werth played for Los Angeles.

"We got the inside scoop on who the man is and who the person is," Rizzo said. "Jim is a great judge of character and clubhouse presence. He was very flowery in his praise in Jayson on and off the field. He feels, like I feel, Jayson's best days haven't been had yet."

Werth is the grandson of Ducky Schofield and nephew of Dick Schofield, a minor league teammate of Rizzo. In addition, Rizzo has scouted Werth since he played high-school ball.

"I've been a fan of his lineage and his family," Rizzo said.

Maybe that last bit doesn't mean anything, just a tossed-off comment. But there are a lot of people within the game who do give a player extra credit if his father or his uncle or his grandfather played in the major leagues. And while I won't suggest that it's irrelevant (even if it probably is, at this point), I will suggest that Werth's lineage probably tells us a lot less about his future than his nearly 6,000 professional plate appearances do.

All those plate appearances tell us that Werth is a really good hitter. He broke through with a pretty good season in 2004. The next two years were mostly lost to wrist injuries, and we can basically throw those out. Werth came back in 2007 and gave the Phillies roughly what he'd given the Dodgers three years earlier. He played more in 2008 and '9, and he played better. In '09 he did hit 36 home runs and draw 91 walks, but even then he was less great than good.

Werth was great in 2010. Or nearly great, depending on how you measure his defense in right field. At the least, he was really, really good.

So we've got a player who's going to turn 32 next spring. He's got roughly five healthy seasons under his belt. In two of those seasons, he was a part-time player. In two of them, he was a full-time player. In one, he was somewhere in the middle.

In four of those seasons, Werth was good. He wasn't an MVP candidate or anything. He didn't score 100 runs, or drive in 100. He was good.

In the fifth of those seasons, he was excellent. And somehow, some way, Scott Boras turned one excellent season into $126 million. Which is just one more piece of evidence -- as if we needed one -- that Boras is a) the best agent in the business, and b) quite a bit smarter than at least a few general managers.

Media criticism isn't one of my assignments, but I believe this qualifies as a straight news item, considering the subject's professional history:

In the wake of controversial comments Rob Dibble made about Stephen Strasburg, the Nationals announced today Dibble will no longer broadcast their games. The separation will be permanent. The Nationals offered no further comment on the matter.

--snip--

Dibble, who became MASN's analyst at the beginning of last season, has not broadcast a Nationals since Sept. 25. At the time, Nationals President Stan Kasten told the Post that Dibble volunteered to take a leave.

"Rob asked for some time off," Kasten said at the time. "Perhaps he's not feeling well. But I'm not a doctor, nor have I seen his records. So I shouldn't say anything more about it."

Kasten's comment referenced the comments Dibble made about Strasburg on his Sirius XM radio show when, in the days between Strasburg's elbow injury and the revelation he would need Tommy John surgery, Dibble questioned Strasburg leaving the game.

Dibble's comments? Here's just a sample (more if you RTWA):

"I mean, excuse me. There's guys I played with that had screws holding their elbows together. Chris Sabo played two weeks on a broken ankle. I put a steel plate in my wrist so I could be back in five weeks instead of three months. So, this is your choice. You can either suck it up and be a man at 22 making $2 million a year [with] a $15 million contract, or every time you get an ache and pain you can go out of the game and say I'm gonna let down the other 24 guys right here and possibly end up forfeiting the game."

This was before Strasburg was actually diagnosed with a torn elbow ligament that's going to cost him roughly a year of his professional life.

This was after Dibble made some on-air comments that a fair number of distaff baseball fans -- and some non-distaff fans, too -- found at least moderately offensive.

This is merely rank speculation, but I'm guessing that Dibble was put on double-secret probation after the earlier transgression. All he had to do was keep his nose clean for a few more months, and he'd have been solid for 2011. Keep it clean for a few more years, and he might have enjoyed a career like Hawk Harrelson has enjoyed with the White Sox.

Maybe he will, still. Harrelson didn't become firmly established in Chicago until nearly 20 years after his playing career ended. By that standard, anyway, Dibble's still got a few years to figure things out.

You do have to wonder, though. The big guy will turn 47 this winter. You have to wonder ... If Dibble was ever going to figure out that the franchise's face of the future outranked him on the organizational depth chart, he probably would have already.

From Larry Stone, a (highly selective) list of pitchers who have undergone Tommy John surgery: Chris Carpenter, A.J. Burnett, Ryan Dempster, Tim Hudson, Francisco Liriano, C.J. Wilson, and Carl Pavano ... plus relievers Joakim Soria, Rafael Soriano, Arthur Rhodes, Brian Wilson, and Billy Wagner.

Such lists are both interesting and encouraging.

Still, the notion that Stephen Strasburg's return to brilliance is a sure thing -- or that he'll be better than ever -- is whistling in the dark. There's little doubt that he'll pitch. But he's exceptionally unlikely to pitch better when he comes back. What, he's going to throw 102 miles an hour next time and post strikeout-to-walk ratios like Cliff Lee's?

I don't think so. The upside is that Strasburg pitches as well in the spring of 2012 as he pitched in the summer of 2010. That would be a major, major success story.

But there aren't any guarantees. Just look at Liriano, who missed all of 2007 and didn't begin to regain his 2006 skills until this year. Erik Bedard's (one) great season didn't come until some years after his surgery. Kris Benson has pitched for many years since his surgery, but never got back to where he'd been before it. A few pitchers have endured Tommy John surgery, followed by the long rehab ... and then done everything all over again.

Thanks to Dr. Frank Jobe and his successors, the prognosis is positive. But anyone who says he knows what will happen next shouldn't be trusted any more than someone who said Stephen Strasburg was a good bet to win 200 games.

Twins have "extra" catcher, Wilson Ramos. Twins have closer, Jon Rauch, who's given up 43 hits in 38 innings. Twins trade Ramos for Nationals closer, Matt Capps, who's having a fine season. Aaron Gleeman's head explodes:

No one would ever suggest that trading Ramos for a reliever who's slightly better than Rauch is a sound idea, yet by focusing on the save statistic the Twins have done just that and many fans will instinctively be on board with the move for an "established closer." Now, don't get me wrong: Capps is a quality reliever and represents a clear upgrade to the bullpen. What he's not is an elite reliever or enough of an upgrade to part with Ramos.

--snip--

Capps makes the Twins better for the final two months of this season and all of next year, but the improvement isn't nearly as large as the "All-Star closer" label would have you believe and the cost involved is significant in terms of both players and money. Next season the Twins will pay a premium for a quality setup man they perceive as something more because of a reliance on a flawed statistic and they gave up a good catching prospect for the right do that.

Two Questions for Bill Smith:

1. If you didn't have Joe Mauer, would you trade Wilson Ramos for Matt Capps?

2. If Matt Capps had posted his exact statistics this season -- 2.74 ERA in 46 innings -- but as a setup man rather than closer, would you have traded Wilson Ramos for him?

I'm pretty sure the answers are "No way." and "Of course not, you pointy-headed nerd."

The Twins do a lot of things well. Carl Pavano, to name just one thing. But Gleeman's right. This apparent obsession with saves hasn't served them well this week, and there's an excellent chance they're going to regret this trade for the next five or six years.

From Phil Rogers:

Adam Dunn is looking for a deal of at least four years for $60 million after having to settle for a two-year deal with the Nationals in his first run at free agency. The Nats want to keep him, but not at that price. It's likely he will be traded, with the Yankees, Angels and White Sox at the head of the list

Tricky situation, this.

Dunn's numbers this season are skewed by an abnormally high batting average (.288) which is the direct result of an abnormally high (for him) .371 batting average on balls in play. Essentially, unless Dunn's exceptional luck holds for the rest of the summer his batting average is going to tumble.

Which isn't to suggest he's not an outstanding hitter. But Dunn's strikeouts are up and his walks are down, and when his luck changes he might not still be the hitter he thinks he is. Oddly, even if Dunn slumps at the plate his theoretical value will still be as high as it's been in a while, for the simple reason that he's apparently costing his team many fewer runs as a first baseman than he did as an outfielder.

Which brings up an interesting question: Assuming that Dunn's career path from this point is fairly normal, he's going to finish his career with at least 600 home runs and perhaps more than 700. This will necessitate a serious Hall of Fame discussion.

At this point, I'm not impressed with his qualifications. But this is largely because his potent bat in 2008 and '9 was largely balanced by his terrible numbers in the outfield. This season -- and I'll grant that measuring defense at first base is not easy -- he's been fine. Sure, it's just one method and you can find others, but let's assume that Dunn really did cost his teams 67 runs in 2008 and '09, but has cost the Nationals essentially zero runs this season. Do we hold those 67 runs against him, when considering his Hall of Fame case? Or do we simply blame the Reds and Nationals for waiting so long to make Dunn a first baseman?

I don't think it's a black-and-white issue. I like greys. I think I'd be inclined to split the difference. Maybe Dunn shouldn't have been in the outfield. But he was in the outfield, and maybe he'd have been a better outfielder if he took more interest in outfielding. On the other hand, when you've got a player who can hit like Adam Dunn hits, it's sort of your responsibility to get him into the lineup without killing your defense. And for about five years, Dunn's managers failed that test.

I'm guessing all this will become moot. Dunn doesn't strike me as the sort of player who's going to age particularly well. But if he keeps hitting 40 home runs every season, we can't just ignore him.

It happened last Saturday in Philadelphia. Best pitching duel this season. For the Phillies, Roy Halladay. For the Reds, rookie Travis Wood. After seven innings, no score ... and no baserunners for the Phillies. Wood, in just his third major league start, was pitching a perfect game.

Halladay hadn't pitched as well, of course. Not quite: He'd given up one walk and three singles, two of which hadn't left the infield. But in the top of the eighth, Miguel Cairo, batting sixth, shot a double into right field.

The next three hitters due up: Drew Stubbs, catcher Ryan Hanigan ... and Travis Wood (who had batted twice and struck out twice).

For manager Dusty Baker, the choice seems to be fairly clear: Without any good left-handed hitters on his bench, give Stubbs and Hanigan their shots at driving in Cairo and simply hope for the best ... unless he's willing to pull Wood for a pinch-hitter.

An argument might be made for doing exactly that. While a perfect game (or no-hitter) would be a wonderful thing for everyone involved, Baker also has to worry about a little thing we like to call the pennant race, as the Reds still have legitimate hopes of acing out the Cardinals in the National League Central. Making history would be nice. Somehow winning the game would be nicer.

In the event, Baker didn't replace Wood with a pinch-hitter. He also didn't give Stubbs and Hanigan their shots. Instead, he ordered Stubbs to lay down a sacrifice bunt. Granted, Stubbs is exceptionally fast and the outcome might have left Cairo on third base and Stubbs on first base.

It didn't, though. Cairo was on third base but Stubbs was out.

Now, this is not the worst trade-off in the world. You can expect to score fewer runs with one out and a runner on third base than with no outs and a runner on second base ... but the difference is small, and gets smaller if you're really interested in scoring just one run.

The difference gets bigger, though, if one of the hitters coming up can't hit.

Ryan Hanigan can hit. He struck out anyway.

Travis Wood can't hit. He struck out, too.

Miguel Cairo died on third base.

All because Baker let his obsession with the 90 feet between second base and third base -- and, frankly, the natural tendency for managers to overmanage -- trump his awareness that one of the two hitters coming up next wasn't actually a hitter at all.

I'm not picking on Baker. Just a couple of weeks ago in Atlanta, Jim Riggleman did almost exactly the same thing.

Veteran star (Tim Hudson) vs. rookie (Stephen Strasburg). Scoreless after six innings. Veteran's working on a four-hitter, rookie's working on a three-hitter.

But in the top of the seventh, Roger Bernadina leads off with a double. Next up: Ian Desmond, Alberto Gonzalez ... and Strasburg.

Is Riggleman going to pinch-hit for Strasburg? Probably not.

Nevertheless, Riggleman orders Desmond to lay down the sacrifice bunt. Desmond's out, and Bernadina moves to third. Gonzalez strikes out. Strasburg hits for himself, and does not strike out. He does ground out to the shortstop, and the threat is over.

In this case, the damage isn't so obvious. Wood didn't get his perfect game or his no-hitter, and the Reds wound up losing 1-0. Baker might have won that game, but lost.

In this case, the Braves bunched together a bunch of infield singles and sacrifice flies in the bottom of the seventh, knocking out Strasburg and scoring five runs. Riggleman's decision probably didn't cost anything except a bit of credibility with anybody who was paying close attention.

The sacrifice bunt isn't always a foolish move. For too long, people like me have been too quick to point out its negatives while ignoring its positives (especially its potential to turn into a bunt single or an error). Still, can't we agree that surrendering an out for one base doesn't make sense if one of the next two hitters is a pitcher? Can't we agree on that, if nothing else?

From the Department of You Never Know, here's Rob Dibble yesterday:

It all depends on which camp you fall in with. The All-Star Game, even with 34-man rosters, the new DH rule, and the re-entry rule, even with all the crazy changes, is still a game that counts for home-field advantage in the World Series. In my own opinion, if you want to win the game, not just go on merit or mania, Strasburg should 100% be on that roster.

I have been around pro baseball since 1983, and Stephen Strasburg is the most amazing thing I have witnessed in those 27 years - from his talent to his appeal and likeability.

Finally, if the All-Star Game is truly about the fans - and I'm as big a fan as anyone - Stephen Strasburg should be in Anaheim come the second week of July.

Actually, while it might depend on "which camp you fall in," I think most everyone falls into one of the camps that says Strasburg should pitch in the All-Star Game. I mean, assuming (as Charlie Manuel qualifies) that Strasburg keeps pitching brilliantly over the next couple of weeks.

When this "Is Strasburg an All-Star?" meme started popping up yesterday, I had the reaction I have to most controversial questions: a sort of waffling ambivalence. First I see it this way, then I see it that way, and I just sort of let the thing percolate instead of rushing to judgment (granted, on the Web if you wait more than 15 minutes you're a glacier, so "not rushing" means an hour of percolation, at most).

But the percolating essentially stopped when I read Dibble, because suddenly I couldn't imagine a good reason for not making Strasburg an All-Star.

Who's the All-Star game for? Bill James asked this question some years ago, in the course of addressing questions about the voting process, and we're still debating the answer.

In this case, though, I don't think the answer matters much.

Is the All-Star Game for the fans?

I have to think that most baseball fans -- and especially the casual fans who really make the sport commercially viable -- would love to see Strasburg on TV; for many fans, it would be their first time.

Is the All-Star Game for the players?

I have to think that most of the game's best players would welcome the chance to see Strasburg pitch, in the flesh; for most of them, it would be their first time. And I have to hope that American League hitters would welcome the chance to bat against Strasburg, since the very essence of the All-Star Game is pitting the best against the best (and there's little doubt that Strasburg's already one of the best in the National League).

Is the All-Star Game for Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball's broadcast partners?

I have to think that the ratings go up, at least a tick or two, if Strasburg's a part of the festivities. Or, to be more precise, they don't dip as much as usual, in the later innings, if there's a reasonable chance that Strasburg will be making an appearance.

The All-Star Game definitely is not for National League managers ... but if you're All-Star manager Charlie Manuel -- or for that matter, the manager of any other contending National League team -- don't you want the guy who throws 100 miles an hour in your bullpen?

If I'm an American League manager, I'm militating against letting a rookie starter with a few dozen major league innings into the biggest game of the summer.

If I'm anyone else, I don't see how you keep the kid out.

What the Baseball Gods giveth (Stephen Strasburg's right arm), the Baseball Gods taketh away (John Lannan's extraordinary run of good luck). And so the Nationals' Opening Day starter is going down. Way down.

The Washington Nationals have sent left-hander John Lannan to Double-A Harrisburg, a demotion for their pitcher who started on Opening Day.

Lannan was 2-5 with a 5.76 ERA in 14 starts. He didn't get out of the fifth inning in any of his last three starts, giving up at least 10 hits and five runs in each outing.

"I think he was starting to press," Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said. "I think his struggles were getting the best of him. Psychologically, I think he was very worried he was letting his team down, that he wasn't giving his teammates a chance to win games."

Lannan also started the opener for the Nationals last year and led the team that season with nine wins.

--snip--

The Nationals did not say how long Lannan was expected to spend with Harrisburg. Washington manager Jim Riggleman said the most important factor would be how many ground balls the sinkerball pitcher was getting, rather than statistics.

"The best thing for John is to send him out and see if he can get straightened out down below," Riggleman said. "It's tough to try to work out mechanical things in the big leagues."

Could Riggleman really be so foolish? I mean, ground balls? Seriously?

Last season, 52 percent of the batted balls against Lannan were ground balls; this season it's been 50 percent. Obviously, 50 percent isn't as good as 52 percent -- or 54 percent, Lannan's figure in 2008 -- but a difference of a couple of percent doesn't come anywhere near explaining the difference between Lannan's 5.76 ERA this season and his 3.88 ERA last season.

The easiest (and most accurate) explanation for that difference involves luck and the strike zone. After three straight seasons of extraordinary luck, Lannan's been unlucky this season. At the same time, he's also lost control of the strike zone, completely.

Not that he ever had much control of that.

As a rookie in 2007, Lannan started six games and walked more hitters than he struck out. But he lucked into a 4.15 ERA anyway.

In 2008, Lannan's strikeout-to-walk ratio was just 1.63, but thanks to a .273 batting average on balls in play (BABiP) he posted a 3.91 ERA.

In 2009, Lannan's strikeout-to-walk ratio dropped to 1.31, but thanks to a .276 BABiP he posted a 3.88 ERA.

After three straight seasons of sub-.280 BABiP and solid ERAs despite low SO/BB ratios, it was somewhat understandable if somebody thought Lannan had some special ability to prevent runs without doing the things that typically prevent runs. Maybe he found a new way to pitch!

Or maybe not. This season, Lannan's given up a .341 batting average on balls in play, and at the same time his strikeout-to-walk ratio has collapsed: In 75 innings, he's walked 35 and struck out only 24.

And again, this isn't about ground balls and fly balls, or at least not superficially. He's getting roughly as many ground balls as he's always gotten, and he's given up only seven home runs. It doesn't seem to be about arm strength, either; Lannan is throwing as hard as ever, maybe even a little harder.

I don't mean to suggest the Nationals should just keep running Lannan out there every five days, hoping his luck turns around. The game isn't always that simple. I will suggest that Lannan's struggles have little or nothing to do with ground balls, and almost everything to do with gaining some control of the strike zone. If he can get back to where he was in 2008, he'll have the makings of a decent No. 4 starter.

Like the rest of us, Murray Chass wants to see as much of Stephen Strasburg as possible. But with Nationals president Stan Kasten suggesting that Strasburg will throw only 100-110 innings in the majors this season, we're probably not going to see him in September:

If Strasburg averages seven innings a start, he would have 14 starts after his second outing in Cleveland Sunday. If he pitches on regular four days’ rest, he would come to the end of his season before the end of August.

The Nationals figure that with about 130 innings combined in college and the Arizona Fall League last year, Strasburg should be restricted to about 150 total this year.

Apparently referring to a study done a few years ago by Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, Kasten said historical evidence shows that young pitchers face potential injury if they increase their number of innings too drastically from year to year.

But Kasten was in Atlanta when Tom Glavine was a rookie in 1987 and John Smoltz in 1988, and both pitched until age 42, building Hall of Fame careers despite a huge increase in innings pitched from their first year to the second. Glavine went from 50 1/3 to 195 1/3, Smoltz from 64 to 208.

“It was a different era,” Kasten said.

What does the era have to do with pitchers’ elbows and shoulders? The human body is stronger and more fit than it has ever been. Why should young pitchers develop problems now that young pitchers didn’t encounter 25 years ago?

"You can tell me that all you want," Kasten said. "I can’t explain it to you, but I am suggesting this is a different era. Humans are better but yet the evidence shows a correlation between too fast a ramp up for young pitchers and injuries later so we’re trying to be careful."

I had to stop there, because if I kept going I would find so many things to disagree with that I'd break the Internet. So, just focusing on that snippet ...

Of course Glavine didn't go from 50 innings to 195, nor Smoltz 64 to 208. The Nationals are counting all of Strasburg's innings last season, but Chass is considering only Glavine's and Smoltz's major league innings. Glavine's innings actually went down in his rookie season: 201 professional innings in 1987, 195 in 1988. Smoltz's increase was tiny: 199 innings in 1988, 208 in 1989.

It's not that they were babied as major league rookies; it's that they weren't babied in the minors before getting promoted.

But you know what? Stan Kasten's more wrong than Murray Chass. The (so-called) Verducci Effect has been studied and studied and almost everybody finds the same thing: nothing. I don't know ... Maybe we're just not looking hard enough. But it seems an awfully thin reed from which to hang an organizational strategy for the care and feeding of young pitchers.

Granted, I wouldn't suggest that Strasburg should be allowed to throw 200 innings this season. I don't have any idea what the correct number is, and I doubt if anyone else does either. I do believe this is not necessarily "a different era" (as Kasten claims). I believe the Nationals' aim is to eventually get Strasburg to the point where he can throw 200-220 innings per season, and I believe it's foolish to assume that's his natural limit. I believe the current practice of limiting young pitchers to 100-110 pitches is foolish, and the practice of limiting veteran pitchers to around 120 pitches is more foolish.

I would love to see Strasburg stay healthy, and I would love to see him throw 250 innings in 2013. There's no obvious reason that both things can't happen. Except it pretty obviously won't, with the Nationals.

From the mailbag, garden-fresh:

While watching the Strasburg game last night, did it scream out to you, like it did me, that the NL needs to add the DH? During his first AB in his first game, Strasburg didn't run out a guaranteed hit. Even Costas said that if he'd run at three-quarters speed, he would have been safe.

When Costas asked his announcing partners if they had a problem with it, the third man in the booth said he had no problem. Really? In his first AB in his career, with the entire baseball world watching? This is because he is a pitcher, not a hitter. He was DH'd for in the minors, and I'm sure, DH'd for in college ... This is no hitter and he showed he didn't want to be on the field during offense. I'm curious what you thought because no one has mentioned this anywhere.

Thanks,
Michael

Michael, I'm of two minds about this. I don't enjoy watching pitchers (trying to) hit, but I do enjoy this last lingering difference between the two leagues. So I'm generally content with the status quo. But as Craig Wright has written somewhere, if the National League is going to continue forcing pitchers to hit, it should be taken seriously. It's one thing to have a bunch of guys in the lineups who can't hit, but it's a far worse thing to have a bunch of guys in the lineups who aren't really trying. And I'm not just talking about not busting down the line every time. Pitchers would hit at least a little better if they actually worked on hitting -- after all, most of them are fantastic athletes and were among the best hitters on their teams before turning professional. But while pitchers do take batting practice, it's just a mild afterthought.

The argument for making the pitchers hit is usually that the game is more pure that way, and theoretically that's absolutely true. But how pure is the game when 11 percent of the guys in the lineup aren't really trying?

Scott Boras on Bryce Harper: "No baseball person in his right mind will have the guy catch," supposedly because Harper's too good a hitter. Which seems odd, considering that Mike Piazza and Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra were pretty good hitters and were more valuable as catchers than they would have been at other positions. Craig Calcaterra:

I don't see how you don't at least start the guy as a catcher if you're the Nationals. That is what will provide the team the most value, certainly, both for what he is and because it is much easier to fill holes elsewhere than at catcher. Indeed, one of the non-catching positions most commonly cited as a potential destination for Harper is third base, and the Nats are already set there with Mr. Zimmerman, thank you very much.

All I can think that's animating Boras here is the history of catchers having a longer road to get to the majors and the fact that the tools of ignorance lead to more wear and tear than other positions. The former consideration would potentially put off free agency for Harper. The latter would make free agency a less-valuable proposition.

Well, there's more than that. Catchers tend to get hurt, and they tend to take a while to find their sea legs. Witness Matt Wieters, Chris Iannetta, Buster Posey ... None of these guys have developed exactly the way they were supposed to. There are any number of reasons why, if you were advising a fantastic young hitter, you might advise him to play some other position.

Of course, there's one thing missing (so far) from this equation: the young hitter's opinion. According to Craig, Harper's "on record as saying he wants to catch." When you sign with Scott Boras, you don't forfeit your right to have an opinion ... but I'll bet if you were to make a list of the 100 most persuasive men in America, Boras would be on it.

And you know what? Scott Boras probably does know best. Would Bryce Harper be happier with Scott Boras, or without him?

Nobody can know. We do know that if a player doesn't have an agent, his team will steal him blind. We know that a player with Harper's talents should at least consider the next 20 years, and we know that a team really can't look beyond seven or eight years.

Boras's comment about Harper's future position don't mean much at this point. If Harper wants to catch and the Nationals want him to catch, he'll catch ... Unless Boras figures out a way to contractually prohibit such a thing. And I wouldn't put it past him.

Craig on something that sounds just a little outlandish:

Both geography and an elaborate b.s.-dampening system I recently had installed prevents me from picking up WFAN radio in my home, but according to this guy, Former Mets GM Steve Phillips was just on the Mike Francesa show and said that he'd trade Stephen Strasburg for Roy Oswalt straight up if he were running the Nationals.

It's days like this that Mets fans should look upon Omar Minaya and be thankful for what they have.

I'm obviously straining the limits of conscientious blogging -- which isn't easy to do -- by publishing (in its entirety) a post riffing off-handedly on a second-hand account of something somebody said (or might not have said) on the radio. So I'll neither criticize nor defend that certain somebody.

Instead, let's think through a trade that might, in an alternate reality, make sense for a team with title to Stephen Strasburg's considerable talents.

Not the Nationals, though. Given where they are in the development cycle, it's simply impossible to justify trading six years of Strasburg for 10 months of Roy Oswalt. And that would be true even if Oswalt wasn't slated to earn nearly $30 million through the 2011 season.

But what if you're a contender, and the money's not all that important? Who's more likely to get you into the playoffs this season, and help you win the World Series?

Oswalt, clearly. Strasburg's going to pitch maybe 110 innings in the majors this season, and he'll burn those up before October (if not September). If you were really trying to win, you might remove him from the rotation in July or August and deploy him for the rest of the season as your not-so-secret bullpen weapon, like the Rays used David Price in 2008. But if you'd given the Rays a choice between Price and Oswalt that summer, wouldn't they have chosen Oswalt?

And what about 2009? Oswalt missed a few starts last year and was bizarrely unlucky, going just 8-6 in 30 starts. But Price spent part of the season in the minors and wasn't terribly impressive during his time in the majors. Obviously, the Rays wouldn't trade Price for Oswalt today ... but it's worth mentioning that Price is now in his third major league season, and he's still not the pitcher we once thought he would become.

He might still. But you always wonder. With Roy Oswalt, there's very little wondering. Take the money out of it, and if I'm trying to win right now, I would rather have Roy Oswalt than Stephen Strasburg in 2010 and '11, because I think Oswalt is going to win more games in these two seasons. I'm not worried about babying his tender right arm, and I'm not worried about adjusting to pitching against the best hitters in the world.

If I'm the Nationals, though? Fuhgeddaboutit.

This is starting to seem a little silly, what with the strikeouts and the unhittability and whatnot. It's reached the point where we can start looking at schedules to figure out when Stephen Strasburg will finally arrive in the majors. Ben Nicholson-Smith:

If the Nationals keep him in the minors for three more May starts, they can call him to the majors on June 1st. That would almost certainly be late enough to prevent Strasburg from becoming a Super Two player and earning millions more through arbitration. However, calling Strasburg up in May would give him a chance at Super Two status.

In theory, the Nationals could make money by calling their phenom up. As USA Today's Mel Antonen reported this week, attendance figures and merchandise sales have spiked wherever Strasburg has pitched. This could happen in Washington, too, but the Nationals have just five home dates remaining in May, and they would only be able to start Strasburg once on their upcoming homestand.

It seems much more likely that the Nationals will keep Strasburg in the minors for three more starts, save themselves a few million and call on the phenom to face the Astros in Houston June 1st.

Makes sense to me. In the old days (i.e. the 1970s), the club would have made sure its phenom debuted at home, the better to hype the big event. But these days the practice is to break the kid in gently, give him a (relatively, supposedly) low-pressure debut on the road. Which is fine. The Nationals will sell out his first appearance in Washington whether it's his first start or his second.

Meanwhile, the "attendance figures and merchandise sales" argument -- the argument for bringing Strasburg up now and grabbing all the cash you can -- doesn't really hold water. Sure, you'll sell a bunch of t-shirts and jerseys and stuff, but you'll sell those eventually anyway. The real boost would be to the attendance, but we're talking about maybe two extra starts here. There's just no way the additional ticket sales could approach the amount of money the Nationals might save by delaying Strasburg's arbitration eligibility for one year.

A thought just occurred to me, though. The Nationals probably won't let Strasburg throw more than 150 to 160 innings this season. What would happen if they brought him up right now ... but, when he's hit his innings limit in August or early September, they demoted him to the minors. It would be a paper move, of course; but wouldn't that stop the service clock from running, and thus keep him from reaching Super Two status?

Probably not. That seems too huge a loophole. I just wanna see this kid in the majors.