Return of the Rickeys

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In honor of Rickey Henderson’s induction into the Hall of Fame this past weekend, I wrote a follow-up piece to last Friday’s look at which contemporary players are the most Rickey-like based upon a 10-category statistical profile:

• Batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage: All three were maintained for this exercise, because they preserve the shape of a player’s performance in a way that a single indicator such as EqA, OPS, or OPS+ doesn’t. Average and slugging percentage are the only two categories here in which Henderson doesn’t rank in the top 30 among this crop; without including them, we wind up with Alex Rodriguez and his translated rate of 55 homers per 650 PA among the top five comps, which is nonsensical.

• Equivalent Average: Fundamentally, this is runs produced per plate appearance, adjusted for park and league scoring levels, and placed on a batting average scale.

• Equivalent Baserunning Runs (EqBRR): This measures how many additional runs a player adds on the bases, via steals as well as advancing on ground balls, fly balls, hits, wild pitches, passed balls, and balks.

• Walks per plate appearance: While walks obviously make up part of OBP, the category deserves special emphasis in any comparison with the man who’s second all time in drawing them.

• Power/Speed Number (P/S): This [Bill] Jamesian creation was designed to credit players who hit home runs and steal bases via the formula (2 * HR * SB)/(HR + SB). As with the walks, Henderson ranks second all-time in this category, and his per-650 PA translated rate scores third here, his highest ranking.

• Runs scored per time on base (R%/TOB): While this is a context-sensitive measurement that depends upon a player’s teammates, normalizing the players to the same scoring environment removes some (but not all) of the inequity. I’ve chosen to include this to emphasize top-of-the-lineup types who have the skill to put themselves in scoring position in one way or another.

• Stolen-base percentage (SB%) and stolen base attempts per times on base (SBA/TOB).

After finding the least Rickey-like among the current crop of players (the Brewers’ Jason Kendall, with a dishonorable mention for he more hacktastic Bengie Molina) I turned to the most Rickey-like among the players in history. The latter group had to be split into two sub-groups, one for pre-1954 players due to the dearth of caught stealing and other baserunning data, and the other for the Retrosheet era, where those numbers are readily available. Among the first group, it was Kiki Cuyler, a relatively obscure Hall of Famer, who outdistanced the more famous Sliding Billy Hamilton, holder of the all-time stolen base record for over 80 years until Lou Brock came along; Henderson, of course, broke Brock’s record.

Brock finishes sixth among the other sub-group behind Joe Morgan (whom nobody guessed as the most similar player), Davey Lopes, Tim Raines, Kenny Lofton and Eric Davis. That’s an electrifying group of players right there, cerebral speedsters who could hit, walk, and steal with a great degree of success. Lopes, Raines and Davis are on my short list of personal favorites.

Via the translations, Morgan winds up as an excellent match for Henderson, scoring well above 900 points [out of 1000] in five different categories, and below 800 only in stolen-base attempt frequency. Lopes is a surprising second, edging out Raines. One of the great high-percentage basestealers of all time, he once set major league record with 38 consecutive steals, and it’s no coincidence that the 2007 and 2008 Phillies, two teams for whom he was the first-base coach, rank first and fourth in our database in Equivalent Stolen Base Runs, and ninth and 10th in EqBRR. The man could read a pitcher’s move, to say the least. As for Raines, who didn’t walk or steal quite as often as Henderson but who was a better baserunner (more on that momentarily), with Henderson’s admission to Cooperstown now a done deal, it’s worth a reminder that he’s eminently worthy of election to the Hall.

I didn’t say anything about Davis in the body of the piece, but I did add a note in the comments regarding his incredible ability in all but one area: “From 1986 through 1993, Davis’ Age 24 through 31 seasons — his statistical prime and then some — he averaged 31 homers and 47 steals per 162 games, yet averaged only 118 games a year, never topping 135.” Owner of perhaps the greatest power-speed combo to hit the scene between Willie Mays and Barry Bonds, the guy simply couldn’t stay healthy, but beteen a lacerated kidney suffered while diving for a ball in the finale of the Reds’ 1990 World Series sweep and a torn rotator cuff doing the same for Jose Jiminez’s no-hitter in 1999, few players left as big a piece of themselves out there on the field, or showed more heart. More on his career in my 2007 Hall of Fame ballot rundown.

The article concludes with a couple of other lists, one showing the all-time leaders in stolen base percentage (300 attempt minimum) and the other the Retrosheet era leaders in EqBRR, where Willie Wilson edges Henderson and Raines by a hair, with Paul Molitor and Lopes rounding out the top five, a considerable distance back. A couple of surprising names in that group, to say the least.

Smelling Like Roses

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Tuesday afternoon’s appearance on the Fox Strategy Room’s “Last Call with Rick Leventhal” was a gas, if not the world’s most substantive or coherent discussion about sports. As with my previous appearance, I was joined by comedian Geno Bisconte, whose hyperactive mugging for the camera and willingness to tweak just about anybody kept me and the other panelists — Division I baseball coach Tommy Weber, Mike Falcone of Fark.com and host Leventhal — in stitches as we talked over one another during our rollicking roundtable. Bisconte seized on my relatively new mustache and my Western-cut blazer, nicknaming me Deadwood (as in the HBO show… I hope) a few times.

Our conversation began with the topic of whether Pete Rose should be reinstated to baseball, a topic based upon a rumor floated by the New York Daily News‘s Bill Madden on Monday, one that I didn’t believe for a second (Madden showed us who’s boss by refuting his own story by the time we went on air). While I expected the discussion would eventually veer towards the Hall voters’ attitudes towards steroids (I had prepared a talking point or two on the matter), I’m just as happy to have avoided that topic. You can see a nearly 10-minute excerpt on the Rose stuff here.

From there we moved onto Plaxico Burress’ upcoming grand jury testominy and Michael Vick pending reinstatement — neither of which were in my wheelhouse, though I did enough homework on the latter to be more than, um, deadwood — briefly returning to baseball to touch on the Yankees’ recent play and the possibility of Roy Halladay being traded. Sadly, the Mets’ public relations meltdown didn’t take much hold of the conversation, depriving me of my best comedy material. Ah, well — you win some, you lose some, and some are called on account of rain.

This Calls for Stragety

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To my surprise and delight, I’ve been invited to return to the Fox Strategy Room, where Steven Goldman and I appeared back in April in the service of promoting Baseball Prospectus 2009. For those unaware of its format, the Strategy Room is a streaming webcast conducted in a roundtable format and broken up into hour-long segments that tend to veer all over the map.

Ostensibly, I’ve been invited to discuss Pete Rose’s potential reinstatement with host Rick Leventhal and the other panelists, but given their tabloid sensibilities, I’m sure by now the Mets’ disasterpiece may be the bigger story in the baseball world. I’d better read up on my other sports, because if history is a guide, our segment won’t be limited to baseball.

I had a great time during my last appearance, and I’m looking forward to this one. I’ll be on at 4 PM Eastern, streaming from the Flash popup here.

(Apologies to Bugs Bunny for the title of the post.)

Clearing the Bases: Post-Rickey, Pre-DC edition

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Whew, am I behind in my blogging. Here’s what’s not-so-new:

• A Basseball Prospectus/ESPN Insider piece examining second-half strength of schedule, revisiting an earlier piece but using Hit List Factor instead of a team’s projected winning percentage. Here’s how the teams shake down:

Team       Season   1st    2nd
Blue Jays   .514   .497   .536
Orioles     .522   .510   .536
Royals      .505   .494   .518
Yankees     .508   .500   .518
Rays        .504   .496   .515
Athletics   .518   .521   .514
Rangers     .503   .495   .513
Red Sox     .504   .498   .512
White Sox   .497   .485   .512
D'backs     .503   .497   .510
Astros      .494   .485   .505
Indians     .505   .504   .505
Tigers      .495   .488   .503
Giants      .497   .493   .502
Mariners    .502   .502   .502
Padres      .512   .523   .499
Angels      .505   .510   .498
Reds        .491   .490   .492
Nationals   .504   .516   .489
Pirates     .492   .495   .488
Braves      .494   .499   .487
Twins       .494   .499   .487
Phillies    .490   .495   .485
Marlins     .496   .507   .483
Rockies     .497   .508   .483
Cubs        .489   .496   .482
Mets        .496   .508   .481
Cardinals   .483   .486   .480
Brewers     .492   .504   .477
Dodgers     .489   .499   .477

Glad to see that two of my three teams have cupcake schedules, though for the Brewers it won’t mean much if they can’t improve their pitching.

• Last week’s Hit List, which found the Dodgers and Yankees 1-2 for what I believe is the first time in the column’s history.

• Speaking of the Hit List, I was lucky enough to get to take a time out during its creation to watch the final two innings of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game. While I’ve seen a few no-hitters in their entirety (including Nolan Ryan’s record-setting fifth) and caught the tail end of several more, this was the first perfecto I’d seen the end of; I missed those of David Wells (turned that one off early, d’oh) and David Cone. DeWayne Wise’s spectacular catch to rob Gabe Kapler of a home run to lead off the ninth inning was worth the price of admission alone.

• Also from last Friday, in honor of Rickey Henderson’s induction into the Hall of Fame, I took a at which contemporary players are most like Henderson:

Rickey Henderson will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Sunday, an honor that feels long overdue for the player who holds the all-time records for both stolen bases and runs, is a member of the 3,000 Hit Club, and is widely acknowledged as the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. “If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” wrote Bill James of Henderson nearly a decade ago. The bearded bard of sabermetrics was onto something, and not only with regards to Henderson’s Cooperstown credentials. Scanning the horizon in search of a truly similar active player, one comes up with only fractional Rickeys, players who possess elements of Henderson’s game — his speed-power combo, his keen batting eye, his basepath derring-do — but nowhere near to the exact same blend.

In honor of Rickey’s impending induction, I set out to search for the most Rickey-like player among the current crop of actives, devising a series of similarity scores in categories that typify the unique shape of Henderson’s performance. Rather than use raw statistics to compare a player whose major league career began 30 years ago, I called upon Clay Davenport’s translated statistics, which normalize all players to the same run-scoring environment. Instead of relying upon a single year’s performance, I used a 3/4/5 weighted average of 2007, 2008, and 2009 stats for all players with at least 900 actual plate appearances over that span, then boiled those down to a per-650 plate appearance format for comparison to a similar encapsulation of Henderson’s career. This sells the superstar short by including his decline phase, but with nobody even remotely close to Rickey Henderson at his peak out there today, the bar needs a bit of lowering.

The players were then scored in ten categories, with Henderson’s performance defined as 1000 points, the least Henderson-like as zero, and all performances in between scaled accordingly. Occasionally, small-sample outliers had to be removed for this to work; crediting a player who’s 4-for-5 in stolen bases with similarity to Henderson’s 80.4 percent success rate on the basepaths isn’t appropriate. It’s important to note that players who exceeded Henderson in these categories — with higher slugging percentages or stolen-base success rates, say — were penalized, too; this process isn’t designed to tell us the best player, just the “Rickeyest.”

While obviously I had the upper hand because I was the one creating the system, I was as surprised as anyone else when the Orioles’ Brian Roberts came out on top, with B.J. Upton, Johnny Damon, Jose Reyes and Carl Crawford following. “All of these players combine speed, power, and the ability to get on base to some degree, but none of them profile quite like Henderson does; each punts at least one category in this particular decathalon,” I wrote, noting particularly that none of the overall leaders walks with Henderson’s frequency. For more, see BP and ESPN Insider, and look for a follow-up at BP on Tuesday.

• Last week’s Toledo radio hit.

• Following up this item, which gave me ample fodder for the Mets’ hit List entry, Tony Bernazard gets what he richly deserved: a pink slip. What an asshole. Meanwhile, Diamondbacks scout Carlos Gomez clarifies his part in one of the incidents that led to the firing. Contrary to the New York Daily News‘ earlier report, Bernazard did not directly address Gomez with his profanity-laced tirade, but rather berated a Mets official who told him to wait until the end of the half-inning before taking the seat occupied by Gomez.

[Update]: Via Shysterball, Mets GM Omar Minaya’s performance at the press conference is worth a look. He tangles with Daily News Mets beat reporter Adam Rubin, accusing his coverage of being slanted by his own desire to join the Mets’ player development department under Bernazard. This is turning into a parade of trainwrecks. And I can’t stop watching.

• Finally, I’ll be at the Society for American Baseball Research convention in Washington, DC from Thursday until Sunday. Don’t be shy if you see me there and want to say hi — I don’t bite.

Hot Stuff Coming Through!

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If it’s July, trade rumors are in the air, and if you’ve got ESPN Insider access, you may have seen that the Baseball Prospectus team, including yours truly, has been augmenting the site’s MLB Rumor Central area with some quick-hit analysis every morning, complete with bylines. Starting today, ESPN’s collecting those bits into the Insider-only BP Hot Sheet. Here are a few of my contributions (the uppercase stuff links back to the rumors page, referring to their previous writeups):

TRADES: TEAMS SCOUR THE NON-HALLADAY OPTIONS
Baseball Prospectus: The best of the rest behind The Doc

Beyond [Roy] Halladay, who’s fourth in the AL with a 2.73 ERA and fifth in the majors with a .646 support-neutral winning percentage, the best commodity on the pitching market is Cliff Lee, whose 3.17 ERA and .632 SNWP also are high on the leaderboard. From there, the drop-off is steep, however. Doug Davis (3.95 ERA, .531 SNWP) is above average, Jon Garland (4.41 ERA, .496 SNWP) is average, and then you’re into the dregs of Carl Pavano (5.48 ERA, .467 SNWP) and Brad Penny (5.02 ERA, .448 SNWP). – Jay Jaffe

TRADES: BECAUSE OF WAIVERS, MATT HOLLIDAY COULD LAND ANYWHERE
Baseball Prospectus: With Holliday, what you see (in Oakland) is what you get

[Matt] Holliday’s stock has been rebounding, thanks to a .311/.389/.557 (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) July with three homers in the past week, breaking a six-week homerless drought. No team acquiring him should expect a sudden return to his Colorado form, however. His numbers this season (.280/.372/.448) are a very good match for his career road numbers (.281/.351/.450), confirming the much-held suspicion that his power was the product of Coors Field’s high altitude. – Jay Jaffe

TRADES: STILL LOTS OF INTEREST IN PENNY
Baseball Prospectus: No team should break the bank for Penny

Brad Penny is not really the same type of pitcher he was during his Dodgers heyday. He’s getting grounders on just 40 percent of balls in play, compared to about 49 percent in 2007, and he’s lucky he hasn’t allowed even more home runs, as his home runs-to-foul balls rate of 7.9 percent is well below league average. He’d benefit from a move to a friendlier park in the easier league, but he’s nobody the Brewers should break the bank for. – Jay Jaffe

You say Halladay, I say Holliday, let’s call the whole deal off…

Some People Crack Wise, Some Just Crack

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I don’t hate the Mets by any stretch of the imagination, but I have to admit I’m fascinated by the frequency and ferocity of their self-immolations over the past few years. The latest has team brass cracking down on Jerry Manuel cracking wise about the team’s injury situation, while VP of Player Development Tony Bernazard simply cracks.

Three ugly incidents involving Bernazard have been reported over the past two days. In the first one, he took his shirt off and challenged a minor leaguer to a fight, leading one wag to remind readers that Bernazard once endured an 0-for-44 string of futility, tied for the longest in the majors by a non-pitcher: “Odds are he wasn’t going to hit anybody even if he tried.”

In another incident, he engaged in “a profane verbal exchange” with closer Francisco Rodriguez, and now a third has come to light, in which he got in a shouting match with a Diamondbacks scout:

These incidents have been common knowledge around the Mets for days – as was the ugly, very public exchange Bernazard had with Diamondbacks scout Carlos Gomez in the box seats behind the plate during a recent home stand at Citi Field. For Minaya to say he’s “investigating” the matter is either an insult to our intelligence or an acknowledgment that all of this despicable behavior by his assistant is somehow news to him.

In the confrontation with Gomez, Bernazard screamed at the scout for sitting in his seat and angrily demanded him to move. Then when one of his own baseball operations men attempted to intercede, suggesting that they wait until the end of the inning for everyone in the scouts section to shift seats, Bernazard went ballistic and began cursing at his own man in front of all the other scouts.

Gomez, you may recall, is the indy-league sidearmer I interviewed a few years back for Baseball Prospectus. Alias Chad Bradford Wannabe, he was hired by Arizona in late 2007 after writing a popular series on pitching mechanics for Baseball Think Factory. Somehow I have a feeling he’ll still have a job long after Bernazard is fired, a dismissal that’s richly deserved, as even Bill Madden figures out:

It would be one thing if Bernazard, despite his temper, was doing an exemplary job at developing talent for the Mets. But the hard facts are the Mets’ farm system is among the worst in baseball. All you need is to look at what has transpired this year where the best the system has been able to offer in the face of all the injuries are Argenis Reyes, Nick Evans, Wilson Valdez, thrice-released Angel Berroa and Fernando Nieve, a March waiver claim from the Astros. On that alone, Bernazard deserved to be the first fall guy for this Mets mess.

The Mets’ Triple-A affiliate, the Buffalo Bisons, are an International League-worst 35-58 at this writing, and the Double-A Binghamton Mets are 37-59, two losses away from holding a similar claim on the Eastern League. Ouch.

The Doctor Is In

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Enough with the first-half navel-gazing. Over the course of the past two days, Baseball Prospectus colleagues Steven Goldman, Christina Kahrl and I have offered second-half prescriptions for each of the thirty teams — one or two suggestions that could improve their outlook in the short or long term, depending upon their chances of making the playoffs. In the AL version (BP or ESPN Insider flavor), Steve takes the AL East, Christina the AL West, and yours truly the AL Central. Here’s what I had to say about the two teams in my Toledo jurisdiction (yesterday’s radio hit is here, btw):

The Tigers have the right idea by benching Magglio Ordoñez who’s 163 plate appearances from vesting an $18 million option for next year, and hitting an unacceptable .243/.319/.292 against righties. He can still hit lefties (.300/.356/.463), but in order to limit him to a platoon role and turn the position into an offensive plus—something the Tigers, with a .250 EqA, sorely need—manager Jim Leyland needs a better lefty-swinging corner outfielder than Clete Thomas. The Royals’ Mark Teahen and the Orioles’ Luke Scott are among the available, affordable corner outfielders who would fit the bill.

One reason the Indians are last in the league in runs prevented is that their pitchers don’t miss many bats; they’re 12th in strikeout rate and 13th in Defensive Efficiency. As they play out the string, they should move Kerry Wood back to the rotation. He’s been lousy enough as a closer (5.28 ERA, -0.2 WXRL, 12 saves in 16 opportunities) not to be missed, and while his fragility might necessitate a short leash, he’d provide the rotation with at least one pitcher with a strikeout rate above league average. For $20.5 million over two years, is that too much to ask?

The Wood one was greeted with plenty of skepticism over at BP, which isn’t terribly surprising. It’s an outside-the-box modest proposal, something that’s not likely to happen. My point is that the Indians, who have only one starter with an ERA below 5.00 (Cliff Lee) have absolutely nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Wood’s contract is short enough that it’s likely covered by insurance. It’s also got a vesting option for 2011 if he finishes 55 games in either year (he’s at 29 now), an extra $11 million commitment that makes absolutely no sense. The Tribe is more likely to be able to offload him elsewhere if he can demonstrate that he can start, at least for a short stretch. And not to sound callous, but if he breaks, so what? He’s not helping at all at his current level of performance, and he’s never going to live up to that contract.

For the NL piece (BP and ESPN Insider), Steve again takes the East, Christina takes the Central, and I’ve got the West. Here’s what I had to say about the Dodgers and Padres:

Snubbed via the All-Star selection process, Matt Kemp can’t even get respect from his own manager despite a .320/.384/.495 first-half performance. Joe Torre has batted him seventh or eighth in 45 of 87 games, and in the top five in just 11 games, this despite the fact that his OBP is third on the team behind Manny Ramirez and — wait for it — Juan Pierre. Oh, and he’s also stolen 19 bases (second to Pierre) in 23 attempts. Even with Rafael Furcal heating up after a frigid three-month slump, moving Kemp to the leadoff spot would give one of the team’s most effective hitters at least another 50 PA over the course of the second half, adding runs to the Dodgers’ ledger [“…particularly with Ramirez batting behind him,” I should have added.]

Adrian Gonzalez is the poor man’s Mark Teixeira, minus the switch-hitting part — an excellent all-around player with power, plate discipline, and a good glove. And the Padres, with a depleted team that’s nowhere near contention, should strive to get a Teixeira-like return for their star slugger, the kind of multi-prospect raid on another team’s system that can provide several cogs for a future contender. Gonzalez is ridiculously affordable ($3 million this year, just $4.75 million for 2010 and a $5.5 million club option for 2011 that apparently has no buyout), and losing him will make for an extremely bland major league product in San Diego in the near term, though the sight of 275-pound behemoth Kyle Blanks playing first base on a daily basis might offer some amusement. The point is that since the Padres have the leverage here, they don’t actually need to deal him yet, and they shouldn’t unless they’re offered a package that changes their future.

Until the past few days, I’ve actually been against the idea that the Padres needed to trade Gonzalez, a move that’s bound to be a tough sell to Padres fans. But seeing the way opposing pitchers walked the slugger more than 20 percent of the time last month, I don’t think there’s a lot of excitement to be had by keeping him around amid such a barren lineup. The suspense of whether Kevin Kouzmanoff (.244/.280/.405), Chase Headley (.232/.308/.366) or the undead Brian Giles (.191/.277/.271) — three players who’ve batted behind Gonzalez frequently this year — doesn’t exactly make for scintillating baseball. But that’s just me. Padres’ fans mileage may vary.

The All-Star Break is No Time For a Break

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So I watched the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game this year, which is out of character with my recent history, though last year’s game at Yankee Stadium did bring me back into the fold. I couldn’t have done it without my TiVo, however, which reduced my total time expenditure to about three hours across two nights. Couldn’t take much more than that of the Fox bombast, nor could I afford more between my writing schedule and the steps I’ve been taking to alleviate discomfort caused by what feels like a 50-pound badger attempting to shred my throat. Pass the antibiotics, please.

I was happy to see Prince Fielder, he of the swing-from-the-heels 503-foot blast, but sheesh, what a drawn-out waste of time. Deadspin’s Will Leitch gets it right when he describes the proceedings as “an event that stuffs enthusiasm in a laundry sack and bashes it against the cement for three hours.” For my money, you could edit the whole thing down to a 5- or 10-minute pregame highlight package without missing anything of worth.

As for the centerpiece, who ever heard of an All-Star Game played in less than three hours? It was downright old-school, a competitive affair that turned on a spectacular defensive play (Carl Crawford’s catch of Brad Hawpe’s drive) and a triple by speedster Curtis Granderson, and kept the suspense right up to the final out. But all of the early-count swinging — 15 at-bats ended after a single pitch, another 14 after two pitches — kept the contest feeling like an exhibition. Swing at this, because I’ve got a plane to catch.

Anyway, between the actual midpoint of the season (which was a week ago Sunday) and the All-Star break, it’s a convenient time to look back at the first half, and at Baseball Prospectus we’ve been using the time to examine how our PECOTA projections have fared thus far. In Tuesday’s piece I gave an undignified burial to three teams whom PECOTA saw as potentially playoff bound, the Diamondbacks (88-win Wild Card favorites), the A’s (84-win AL West favorites) and the Indians (86-win AL Central favorites. All three are well below .500, with the latter two in last place in their divisions, and all have seen their Playoff Odds approach zero. Hence, “The Flatliners.”

In today’s piece, mirrored at ESPN Insider, I expand upon that piece to show which teams have seen their Playoff Odds change the most since our preseason projections:

The three-day All-Star break is a convenient time to begin the grieving process, and so yesterday made for a timely opportunity to shovel dirt on three teams whom PECOTA tabbed as potentially playoff-bound back in April. The Diamondbacks, A’s and Indians may not be mathematically eliminated from postseason contention yet, but with their odds of joining the dance falling below 0.5 percent, a burial seemed in order.

As the BP staff has taken the past several days to examine how our preseason PECOTA forecasts have fared with regards to teams, hitters, starters and relievers, it’s worth remembering that such projections don’t equal destiny. They’re simply a shorthand for a wider range of probabilities centered around the weighted mean forecasts we publicize, and all kinds of real-world factors — injuries, bad luck, mismanagement, imperfect information, and so on — can affect their accuracy.

Bearing that in mind, today we’ll examine which teams have helped or harmed their postseason chances the most relative to our initial forecasts using our plain vanilla version of the Playoff Odds report, thus isolating the effect of our projections from our expectations for these teams going forward. In that report, each team’s current record and third-order Pythagorean record — their record after adjusting for scoring environment, run elements, and quality of opposition — are factored into a Monte Carlo simulation of the rest of the season, with their records regressing not to .500 but to their third-order winning percentages. Run differentials play a big part here; a team that’s above .500 but being outscored won’t see favorable odds.

Surprisingly enough, none of the freshly buried teams rates as the biggest disappointment from this perspective: 

Team        Wpct   3Pct    Div     WC    Tot   Proj    +/-
Cubs        .500   .486   13.0    3.2   16.2   62.6   -46.4
D'backs     .427   .475    0.0    0.2    0.2   45.0   -44.8
Athletics   .430   .475    0.4    0.0    0.4   41.7   -41.3
Indians     .393   .471    0.2    0.0    0.2   38.4   -38.2
Mets        .483   .502   11.5    2.2   13.8   48.4   -34.6
Braves      .489   .501   12.4    2.6   14.9   33.1   -18.1
Reds        .483   .442    2.8    0.7    3.5   19.7   -16.3
Royals      .420   .466    0.4    0.0    0.4   13.8   -13.4
Nationals   .299   .451    0.0    0.0    0.0   10.9   -10.9
Brewers     .511   .477   16.5    3.0   19.5   28.5    -9.1

…From this vantage, it’s the Cubs who have disappointed the most, though at least they maintain about a one-in-six shot at October. Expected to pace the circuit with 95 wins and an MLB-high 11-game cushion, they’re instead tied for third in the NL Central, 3 1/2 games back. Injuries to Milton Bradley and Aramis Ramirez, disappointment from Alfonso Soriano, and a hole in the lineup where Mark DeRosa used to be (their second basemen have hit a combined .224/.280/.294) have limited the Cubs to just 4.1 runs per game and the league’s third-lowest EqA.

The Diamondbacks’ offense ranks directly above them, a problem compounded by the loss of Brandon Webb, who hasn’t pitched since Opening Day, and a wretched bullpen. The A’s main problem has been a lack of offense, some of which is attributable to bad luck on balls in play>. The Indians merely have a staff that’s been the league’s worst in terms of run prevention because they don’t miss enough bats; they’re 12th in strikeout rate and 13th in Defensive Efficiency. The Mets have been without offensive stalwarts Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran for weeks now, and their pitching depth has been compromised by injuries as well; their playoff hopes aren’t dead yet, but please excuse their weak pulse, clammy skin and stiffening limbs.

The Yankees wind up in the middle of the pack; their overall preseason odds of 66.6 percent have fallen slightly, to 58.9 percent, but they’re still very much alive. The Dodgers wind up second from the top of the final list, those teams whose odds have improved the most; they went from heavy pre-season favorites (57.2 percent) to near-certainties (99.3 percent) despite Manny Ramirez’s 50-game suspension.

Anyway, I’ve also got another piece up today on BP and ESPN that looks forward to the second half; I’ll save that for another post.

Back in the Saddle Again

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Gene Autry or Aerosmith, it’s all good:

[#1 Dodgers] Prodigal Sons: The Dodgers regain the Hit List top spot as Manny Ramirez returns from a 50-game suspension. He goes 6-for-18 with two homers and seven RBI, drawing louder jeers for being ejected after an awful strike three call than for his transgression. With Juan Pierre sitting, Rafael Furcal is restored to the leadoff spot and feeling better about his swing via a 14-for-30 showing this month.

[#3 Yankees] Running the Table: A 13-2 run carries the Yankees back into a first-place tie with the Red Sox. They take a three-game set from the Twins in Minnesota, thus winning the season series 7-0; they’ve won 18 of their last 24 games against the Twins. Alas, the run is tempered by the loss of Chien-Ming Wang due to a shoulder strain. Not that he’d pitched well (9.64 ERA overall, 5.50 since returning from the DL, and still waiting for that first quality start), but his absence forces the Yanks to pull Alfredo Aceves into the rotation. Along with Phil Hughes, he’s become a key player in a bullpen that’s put up a 2.39 ERA and 3.3 K/BB ratio since the beginning of June; he’s 18th in the league in WXRL.

[#10 Blue Jays] Break Up the Jays: J.P. Ricciardi opens the door to offers for Roy Halladay, though the ace won’t be a free agent until after 2010. It’s a consequence of a ridiculously top-heavy payroll; they have $74.45 million — 92 percent of this year’s Opening Day payroll — committed to just six players for next year, including B.J. Ryan, whom they punt with some $15 million remaining on his deal. The bigger problems are their five-year commitments to Vernon Wells ($107 million) and Alex Rios ($59.7 million), hitting an interchangeably pallid .264/.313/.418 and .259/.314/.415, respectively.

[#30 Nationals] Dunn Deal? Adam Dunn’s 300th career homer halts Tommy Hanson’s 26-inning scoreless streak and helps the Nats snap their four-game losing streak. Dunn’s the fifth-fastest to 300 homers, at least in terms of the fewest at-bats to reach that milestone, trailing Babe Ruth, Mark McGwire, Ralph Kiner and Harmon Killebrew. Acting GM Mike Rizzo has no plans to trade the curiously consistent slugger. Meanwhile, ex-Nat and current Pirate Joel Hanrahan earns the win in a suspended game against the Astros, with the winning run scored by Nyjer Morgan, who arrived from Pittsburgh in that deal.

Notes galore to these:

• That NBCSports.com link in the Dodgers entry, by Mike Celizic, may be the best piece yet about Manny Ramirez’s return. Between that and Eric Seidman’s piece on John Hirschbeck’s lousy strike three call, that’s a rather off night in the Mets’ booth for the usually appealing Gary Cohen.

• The ease with which Hughes has taken up residence in the bullpen should be used to quiet those who continually pine for Chamberlain to return to the pen. Why? Because it shows that Chamberlain isn’t so unique in his ability to dominate in relief. A pitcher with excellent stuff — Chamberlain, Hughes, even Aceves — can succeed down there by shortening his arsenal and attacking hitters more aggressively. Those same pitchers may struggle a bit in the rotation, but that’s life in the big city; it’s a much harder job getting hitters out three or four times a game, and it’s no crime for even a pitcher with their skills to scale a learning curve. Particularly given the specter of a Brett Tomko start.

• As somebody who likes to dine on schadenfreude pie, metaphorically speaking — it’s the term my friends and I use when discussing the pleasure of watching right-wing lunatics self-immolate — I’m continually amused by Ricciardi’s brash displays of incompetence. I can’t believe that guy still has a job.

• That Hanrahan-Morgan game is just so wonderfully weird I had to squeeze it into the last line of the Hit List. A box score for the ages.