Is It Safe?

Just when you thought it was safe to back into the water — that was a tag line from the movie Jaws, a timeless classic about a rogue great white shark with a taste for human flesh (it’s still a great flick after all these years). In a similar vein, just when you thought it was safe to give up on the slumping Andre Ethier — he goes out outs together a modest 4-game hitting that includes six hits, three runs, a homer, and five RBI over his last two outings. His production has been as unsteady as a boat in the high seas as he hit .385 in April, just .244 in August, and has hit a mere .221 with one homer in 140 at-bats against lefties. Still, with a solid final month of health he could hit .300 with 70 RBI and 80 runs scored, so it hasn’t been a total washout (he’s hitting .294 with 56 RBI and 65 runs scored).

How good is Roy Halladay? Not only does he have 6-straight years of 16 victories and twice as many wins (185) as loses (91) in his career, but he’s a consistency beast. In 2010 he had a 2.44 ERA, 1.04 WHIP and .245 BAA. In 2011 those numbers are 2.47, 1.04 and .243. You have copious amounts of success when you post a 7.30 and 7.64 K/BB ratio (his marks in 2010 and 2011). In case you were wondering, Halladay’s worst monthly ERA was 3.00 in May, and his worst WHIP total was his 1.17 mark from the just finished month of August. Felix Hernandez, one of the best pitchers in the game, has season long marks of 3.37 and 1.20.

Justin Morneau is suffering some minor concussion related symptoms so he is going to be shut down for a few days. I wish the guy all the best because the man has been beat down by injury over the past year. Over his 68 games played this season he’s batting .227 with four homers and 30 RBI and a .618 OPS.

Sergio Santos has been dynamic for the White Sox this year to help stabilize a bullpen that was disastrous at the start of the year. Santos has a 12.68 K/9 mark, has allowed only three homers over 54.2 innings, and has converted 28 of 32 save chances. He’s also allowed just one run over his last 17 outings.

Tim Stauffer gave up seven runs while recording only five outs Tuesday. Blowups like that happen on occasion, but the truly amazing part of his outing is that he gave up all those runs while allowing one measly hit. How is that possible you say? Well, he walked seven batters (as an aside, what kind of manager leaves his pitcher in the game to walk seven batters?). Stauffer walked in a run when Hiroki Kuroda was issued a free pass. That finally got Stauffer removed from the game. Luckily for Timbo, Anthony Bass came into the game and allowed a salami (three of the runs were Stauffer’s).Tim’s ERA went from 3.42 to 3.76 with the outing.

Stephen Strasburg will make his triumphant comeback from Tommy John surgery when he takes the hill for the Nats on September 6th. Strasburg should have success right away, his stuff is simply too good not to, but avoid getting too far ahead of yourself. He’s dominated in the minors with 25 Ks and just three walks in 14.1 innings, and his fastball is sitting regularly at 96 mph, but he’s still yet to throw 75 pitches in a minor league outing. That sounds an awful lot like he will be a five inning pitcher to me for the rest of this season.

By Ray Flowers

Mailbag: July 26, 2011

Here are the answers to some of the questions that I have recently received at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account.

Drop Jemile Weeks for Desmond Jennings ROTW?
– @jbpowellal

Weeks has provided the A’s with a spark on offense. He’s hitting a strong .307 through his  first 40 games, and he’s used his speed to swipe 10 bags. He has little power, he hasn’t gone deep once and his SLG is a poor .405, but he slaps the ball and runs. One part of his game that he hasn’t flashed yet is his patience at the dish as his current 4.6 walk rate is about a third of the number he posted at Triple-A this year. It would be nice to see him put a few more balls into the ground, his 40 percent ground ball rate isn’t great, but overall this has been a good start to his career.

Jennings is a better talent than Weeks as he can do a few more things on the offensive side of the field. Jennings, surprisingly, showed some power at Triple-A this year with 12 homers in 89 games, while flashing his elite speed. He has also done a solid job all throughout his minor league career at getting on base (his OBP in over 500 minor league games is .380). He’s up with the Rays, finally, and he has looked phenomenal in a couple of games. The real question at this point is can he stay healthy?

Many will argue that Weeks is the preferred option because of his position (second base). I’m still going in the other direction even though Jennings plays a position that’s filled with talent (outfield) because he is just so talented.

What’s your take on Alex Cobb. Is he just fill in or does he have long term value? 
– @mercier_five

Cobb is part of a current six man rotation with the Rays. Personally I think the choice to go in that direction is a terrible one, but it’s the way it is in Florida right now. The biggest concern I have with Cobb is his catastrophic K/9 drop. Well over a K per inning guy at Double and Triple-A the past two years, he’s currently at 5.14 through seven big league starts. His BB/9 rate is also worse than the league average as well at 3.43. So how is he having success? It’s all in the grounders as 56 of the batted balls put in play off him have been rug burners. He’s much more Derek Lowe and Fausto Carmona than he is James Shields right now.

As for his long-term value Cobb, a 4th round draft pick in 2006, has risen through the minors on the Rays’ pitching plan, and as we’ve seen that often leads to a lot of success. Cobb was a strikeout per inning arm in the minors, but he’s failed to keep that up in the bigs. The hope is that he doesn’t turn into Wade Davis who has done the the same thing. As a big league starter he’s likely to settle into the #4 role on a good team meaning that he will be hard pressed to ever be a difference maker at the big league level.

What’s your take on Pedro Alvarez now that he’s back?
– @TrillaTrav

Alvarez, the second selection in the 2008 Draft, hit 16 homers with 64 RBI in 95 games with the Pirates last season. Heading into this year nearly every expert in the fantasy game had Alvarez in their top-10, and even those that didn’t were admitting that Alvarez clearly could reach that level. He simply hasn’t. Alvarez has hit .211, posted a .289 OBP and is sporting a sickly .305 SLG (his OBP last year was .326). Alvarez ended up injured and demoted, though he finally seemed to have found his stroke. In 18 games on the farm he hit .325 with a .439 OBP and .538 SLG leading to a recall with the Pirates.

Alvarez has the ability to hit 30 homers while driving in 100, a rate that he was basically performing at last season in the second half (13 homers, 53 RBI over his last 71 games). He’ll need to cut his K-rate down, its over 30 percent this year, to reach that level of success. With all the problems at third base this season, Alvarez is well worth taking a shot on in mixed leagues as there’s always a chance that he’ll recapture the success he had last season in the second half – he certainly has the talent to do it.

IF Heath Bell gets traded, do I drop any of these for Mike Adams – Izzy, Axford, Marmol, Perez, Santos?
– @hedmohave

Last week I broke down the outlook of Mike Adams in the July 19th Mailbag piece. Let me put it this way – his skills are superb, sublime, scintillating in fact. He deserves to be rostered in all but the smallest leagues right now, even as a setup man. If he ends up the closer for the Padres, his value would skyrocket. As for the other arms, here are some thoughts.

Jason Isringhausen: Give him credit for his comeback. The Mets appear intent to sit on him and let him mentor Bobby Parnell leaving Izzy as the Mets’ closer. Jason hasn’t thrown 40 innings since 2008, didn’t pitch in the majors last season, and is 39 years old. He also is giving up a huge 53 percent fly ball rate while his 1.88 K/BB ratio is terrible.

John Axford: Good for the Brewers in doing the right thing, i.e. leaving Axford in the 9th and using Francisco Rodriguez as the setup man. Axford continues to impress with a K.9 rate of 11.27, which when combined with a 54 percent ground ball rate results in him being ideally suited to long-term success in the 9th inning.

Carlos Marmol: The Cubs’ righty had a brutal week, but since then he’s back on track with four scoreless outings. Owner of a devastating arsenal, Marmol is striking out more than 11 batters per nine innings, and he is back as the closer. It’s a bumpy ride, but the results are usually solid. If his BABIP of .324 regresses back to career norms (.254), he would be in line for a strong finish.

Chris Perez: He has been struggling a bit all season despite converting 22 of 24 save chances. A K/9 per inning arm, Perez has seen that number dip to 5.80 this season, which when complimented but his 4.54 BB/9 mark makes him one risky option on the hill. That regression has been on full display the last two weeks as his ERA has gone from 2.23 to 3.03 over four outings.

Sergio Santos: He’s being used cautiously by Ozzie Guillen as Sergio has now appeared in 5-straight games in which he hasn’t lasted an inning despite allowing not a single hit and just one walk. He has been strong all year (3.07 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 12.07 K/9) and remains the arm to own in Chicago, even with the odd usage.

Would I drop any of these arms to add Adams if the deal goes down? I wouldn’t even wait that long. I’d make the move to add Adams right now at the expense if Isringhausen.

Ray Flowers can be heard daily on Sirius/XM Radio on The Fantasy Drive, 5-8 PM Eastern, on Sirius 210 and XM 87.

Celebrating the 4th

photo © 2008 Eric Beato | more info (via: Wylio)

In years past I have taken the 4th of July as a chance to move a bit away from the norm here at BaseballGuys.com. Last year I wrote about Competitive Eating and asked the question about whether or not it was a “sport”?  Two years ago I wrote a piece entitled Freedom where I gave some information regarding the Declaration of Independence. Today I’ll follow my usual path and touch on a few topics that aren’t exactly germane to fantasy baseball while mixing in some relevant information.

There have been 46 ball players who were born on July 4th. Currently there is only one who is active – Sergio Santos who was born in Bellflower California in 1983. In that same year of 1983 Dave Righetti tossed a no-hitter against the Red Sox on the 4th. That outing was the Yankees first no-no since Don Larson’s perfect game in the World Series in 1956.

A history lesson. Though we celebrate the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, the resolution was actually adopted on July 2nd. Furthermore, the Declaration wasn’t officially approved until July 9th when it was voted on at the New York Convention. The document was ordered to be “engrossed on parchment” for the means of it becoming an official document on July 19th. The actual signing ceremony was held on August 2nd, 1776 though, despite common perception, it took longer for all 56 delegates to affix their signature on the historic parchment. Moreover, some members of Congress never actually signed the document.

Lou Gehrig’s retirement speech, you know the one in which he said he was the “luckiest man on the face of the earth,” was given on July 4th, 1939. Gehrig died less than two years later of ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, on June 2, 1941. He was 37 years old.

There are five places in the United States that have the name “America.” The largest is American Folk in Utah. It has a population of more than 26,000 people.

Jose Canseco hit his 30th homer on this date in 1999. He would hit only four more homers the rest of the way including just three over his final 115 at-bats before his season ended. All told he had 34 homers and had 95 RBI in just 113 games for the Rays. The effort marked Canseco as the first player in history to hit 30 homers with four different clubs (the others were the Athletics, Rangers and Blue Jays).

There’s a better than one in four chance that the hot dogs you eat, or ate, came from Iowa since there were over 19 million pigs located in the state in March, 2011. The odds are one in three that your baked beans came from North Dakota and if you’re eating corn on the cob there is a nearly 70 percent chance it came from California, Florida, Georgia, New York or Washington. For more fascinating info, click on this link.

July 4th, 1974 was Mike Marshall’s 14th straight appearance for the Dodgers. And you think guys are overworked nowadays? For the year Marshall pitched 208.1 innings… and didn’t make a single start. He won 15 games, lost 12, and racked up 21 saves to lead the NL. He also posted a 2.42 ERA and 1.19 WHIP on his way to appearing in 106 games, the highest single season total for any pitcher in the history of baseball.

By Ray Flowers

The Closer Conundrum

photo © 1913 The Library of Congress | more info (via: Wylio)
One of the most frustrating situations to deal with in the world of fantasy baseball is to accurately predict which arms will operate in the 9th inning for a club. There are locks with guys like Mariano Rivera, Jonathan Papelbon and Brian Wilson, but a good deal of teams either (a) don’t really know who their 9th inning arm will be or (b) don’t really have an arm that is capable of handling the role for the duration of the season. That situation has never been more acute than early in the 2011 season.

The Rays said they would roll with a committee to start the year, but Kyle Farnsworth is getting all the 9th inning work.

The Jays had a bunch of guys get hurt making the situation even more muddled. For now, Jon Rauch and Frank Francisco are likely to get work in the 9th.

The Orioles say Kevin Gregg is their closer, but Koji Uehara is lurking.

The Twins started the year with Joe Nathan in the 9th, but he struggled. Matt Capps is currently their arm of choice at the end of games.

The White Sox opened the year with Matt Thornton. Unfortunately he had the worst 5-game stretch of his career opening up the year. Jesse Crain and Chris Sale have struggled at times, so now it appears Sergio Santos might get a look.

The Rangers have lost Neftali Feliz to the DL leaving things, apparently, in the hands of Darren Oliver. He has four saves in 602 career appearances.

The Mariners seem ready to demote the successful Brandon League with David Aardsma almost ready to return from hip surgery.

The Phillies started with Brad Lidge who was hurt. They then moved on to Jose Contreras who was hurt. Looks like option #3 is Ryan Madson.

The Nationals started the year giving the ball to Sean Burnett, but he really isn’t a closer. Drew Storen, the club’s closer of the future, has looked great and it appears that he is now the man.

The Braves were going to split work between Craig Kimbrel and Johnny Venters, but it’s been all Kimbrel so far.

The Cardinals watched Ryan Franklin implode, repeatedly, before turning over the ninth to hard throwing, but inexperienced, Mitchell Boggs.

And it goes on and on, and we are talking about three weeks of games folks.

The point should be obvious – drafting relievers because of the roles they hold, and not based on the skills that they posses, is fraught with danger. Think of it. Of the 30 teams in the game a third of them have already switched things around in the ninth inning. And we see this every year. Put yourself back into your time machine and set the dial for March, 2010. Look at the following names who likely weren’t even drafted at all, or if they were selected it was only as a late round, shot in the dark, type of gamble in the last round.

Leo Nunez – 30 saves
John Axford – 24 saves
John Rauch – 20 saves
Alfredo Simon – 17 saves
Juan Gutierrez – 15 saves
Koji Uehara – 13 saves
Hong-Chih Kuo – 10 saves

There are arms every year that come totally out of nowhere – i.e. from the waiver-wire – to produce solid and sometimes difference making saves totals. 2011 will be no different pointing out, yet again, why you don’t always have to jump into the closer run on draft day. Just think if you passed on all the top closers this year and were astute about which middle relievers to roster at the end of the draft. It’s eminently conceivable that you could have ended up with Brian Fuentes (six saves), Jose Contreras (five saves), Brandon League (five saves) and Mitchell Boggs (three saves) on your roster. If you had done that you’d have rostered 19 saves for virtually nothing. What type of odds would you lay right now that 19 saves is similar to the totals you’ll likely get from guys like Andrew Bailey and David Aardsma this season?

In the end I think we need a new system to evaluate relievers. The way the system is currently set up rewards luck. Were you the first to run to the waiver wire to add Contreras when Lidge was hurt? Did you drop a quarter of your FAAB budget on Contreras only to see him come down with an injury? Were you smart enough to also add Ryan Madson? What about a guy like Mike Adams who has out pitched them all (0.82 ERA, 0.18 WHIP, 9.00 K/BB) but one who’s really not posting any fantasy value to speak of in a mixed league cause he has no saves?

My solution? I propose the fantasy game goes with Solds, a topic I discussed a year ago in Around the Horn, April 14, 2010. It’s not a perfect solution, but at least it’s a start.

By Ray Flowers

Mailbag: April 19, 2011

Photo by Scott Ableman

Here are the answer to some of the quick hitters that I received at the BaseballGuys’ Twitter account.

I have one roster spot to speculate saves. In order please rank Mitchell Boggs, Sergio Santos and Drew Storen?
– @5wallace

Ever get the feeling that you’re Bill Murray in Groundhog Day? You remember the movie where Murray is forced to live the same day over and over again, right? I ask because I’ve literally answered questions about Boggs and Santos for days now, and no matter how many times I do, someone always asks again 30 minutes later. I’m tempted to say this is to be the definitive answer and never address it again… we’ll see.

A review of the White Sox bullpen

Matt Thornton: 0-2, 4 BS, 7.94 ERA, 2.82 WHIP
Chris Sale: 2-0, 1 BS, 7.36 ERA, 1.64 WHIP
Jesse Crain: 0-1, 0 BS, 2.16 ERA, 0.84 WHIP
Sergio Santos: 0-0, 0 BS, 0.00 ERA, 1.04 WHIP

Thornton still has an elite arm, but he’s been awful this year. When a guy starts out this bad it’s nearly impossible for his manager to turn back to him in the 9th unless everyone else fails.

Sale has a terrific 9:1 K/BB ratio right now, but he’s given up 11 hits in 7.1 innings and has a scant 30.2 innings in his big league career. Don’t forget, the future for this guy long-term is in the rotation.

Crain is a solid big league hurler who owns a 3.39 ERA and 1.25 WHIP over 390.1 innings, but he also has only three saves in 382 appearances.

Santos is pitching the best of any arm in the bullpen. Batters are hitting only .167 off him, and he has 11 Ks in just 8.2 innings.

A review of the Cardinals’ bullpen

Ryan Franklin: 0-2, 4 BS, 11.57 ERA, 2.14 WHIP
Jason Motte: 0-0, 0 BS, 2.57 ERA, 1.14 WHIP
Trevor Miller: 0-0, 0 BS, 2.25 ERA, 1.25 WHIP
Miguel Batista: 1-0, 0 BS, 1.29 ERA, 1.43 WHIP
Eduardo Sanchez: 8 Ks in 3 IP
Mitchell Boggs: 0-0, 0 BS, 2.00 ERA, 0.67

Unlike Thornton, Franklin doesn’t own the considerable skills normally associated with locking down the 9th inning (despite his success the last two years). I had no faith in Franklin three weeks ago, and even less in him now.

Motte, thought of as the closer of the future, has struggled with locating his pitches. He’s also been unable to put away batters with only three punchouts in seven innings. He just isn’t “right” at the moment.

Miller has looked solid, but he is a lefty matchup pitcher, not a 9th inning option.

Batista is old, no good and has all of four saves the past five years. If the Cards turn to him, boy are they desperate.

Sanchez has looked phenomenal in his three innings. Still, Tony La Russa rarely relies on rookies late in games.

Boggs has looked terrific thus far with an impressive 12.00 K/9 mark and a 4.00 K/BB ratio through six appearances.

A review of the Nationals’ bullpen

Sean Burnett: 0-0, 1 BS, 2.35 ERA, 0.91 WHIP
Tyler Clippard: 0-0, 2 BS, 1.64 ERA, 0.91 WHIP
Drew Storen: 1-1, 0 BS, 0.87 ERA, 0.87 WHIP

Burnett has done nothing to lose work in the ninth inning, and he has three of the teams four saves. However he’s a lefty, and teams usually try to avoid portsiders in the 9th.

Clippard has an impressive 13 Ks in 11 innings over nine appearances. He can go more than an inning at at time which likely means he’ll continue to function in a setup role.

Storen is the closer of the future for the Nats, and he has looked really good since the bright lights of the regular season turned on. I’m still fully confident that he will end the year as the team leader in saves.

If I was choosing between the three arms I’d align them Storen, Boggs and Santos.

Do you think Howie Kendrick will continue to hit for the power he has shown so far this year?
– @cliffbeach21

It ain’t gonna happen. The past two years Kendrick has hit 10 homers each campaign making his five homers in 16 at-bats this season a shocking development. All you need to know about what is going on here is to look at his HR/F category. In his career he is a slightly below big league average producer with a 7.9 percent mark. This year that mark is up over 35 percent. There’s no chance that will continue – zilch (to compare, Ryan Howard’s career mark is 29.5 percent). With his hot start 20 homers is possible, but thinking 15 is still a safer bet.

Mike Leake still rosterable in leagues that penalize caught stealing?
– @jeffonsports

How could I not post this question in my article? I’d suggest that you check to see if your league counts caught stealing on the same level as dollars. If so, his theft of nearly $60 dollars worth of clothes could create a hole he would be unable to recovery from.

Dan Haren for Jay Bruce- who is the better fantasy player for the rest of the year?
– @jabisamra

When you go to the store to buy a TV do you spend $1000 on that 50 inch plasma television you know will deliver solid quality since you’ve had a plasma for a decade, or do you go for the new technology and spend $1700 on a similarly equipped LCD television? That’s kind of like what is going on here.

Dan Haren is an ace – period. He’s off to a tremendous start yet again this year with a 4-0 record, 1.16 ERA, 0.65 WHIP and 13.50 K/BB ratio through five appearances. Far from an April surger who doesn’t have a track record, this guy has been a star for years. From 2005-10 Haren is first in baseball with 203 starts, second in innings pitched (1,343, eight behind CC Sabathia), third in strikeouts (1,176) and tied for sixth in wins (85). There may not be a more stable arm in the game.

Bruce was a superstar at the end of last year hitting .306 with 15 homers over his last 58 games causing many to go all-in at the draft table this year. So far that bet hasn’t been rewarded with performance on the field as Bruce has managed to hit a .268 with two homers and six RBI in 14 games. He’s also continued a troubling trend in his young career – a propensity to rack up strikeouts quickly. Owner of a career strikeout rate of 25.6 percent, Bruce has performed even worse this year with a 32.1 percent mark. He’s also hit far too many balls into the air with a scary 59 percent fly ball are. Most seem to have also forgotten that coming into the year that Bruce had 12 steals and 13 caught stealing, and in more than 1,300 big league at-bats he has hit just .257 so there are plenty of warts with this youngster.

Bruce still has plenty of time to post that 30-100 season many thought was coming this year, but I’m much less certain about his 2011 outlook than I’m with the ultra consistent Haren who just keeps on doing it year after year. Take Haren.

By Ray Flowers

Who is the AL Rookie of the Year?

Prior to the completion of the 2010 regular season, I gave a quick run down of the main candidates for the major baseball awards in Early Award Returns. Never one to rest with a cursory look into any topic, I thought it would be a worthwhile venture to explore each of the major awards in a more in-depth manner. With that, here are my thoughts on the 2010 AL MVP.

To see the previous articles in the series click on the following link:

Who is the NL MVP?

Who is the AL MVP?

Who is the NL Cy Young?

Who is the AL Cy Young?

Who is the NL Rookie of the Year?

AL Rookie of the Year Discussion

Brennan Boesch: He was the best power bat amongst AL rookies this season with 14 homers and 67 RBI, but his production was all over the map. Boesch was hitting .342 with 12 homers and 49 RBI at the All-Star break when I pleaded with everyone to trade him. Hell, as early as the second week of June I was jumping off his bandwagon because he was, simply put, hitting in an extreme amount of luck (you can read my thoughts in BABIP: Hitters). I wasn’t surprised he slumped in the second half, but the drop was precipitous to say the least (.163-2-18 over 68 games).

Wade Davis:  He was everything the Rays hoped he would be in his first full season in the big leagues. He won 12 games, against 10 loses, and despite some ups and down, in addition to some time on the DL, he still posted a solid 4.07 ERA over 168.1 innings. He didn’t strike out as many as hoped – his K/9 mark was a mere 6.05, well below his roughly one per inning pace in he minors – but he managed to keep his walks in check (3.32 BB/9).  He really wasn’t much more than ordinary, but that is still pretty darn good for a rookie in the AL East.

Neftali Feliz: The question to start the year was whether or not he would start of pitch out of the bullpen? The Rangers obviously made the right choice. When Frank Francisco struggled to hold down the 9th, the Rangers gave the ball to Feliz, and he rewarded their faith with the most saves by a rookie in baseball history (40). He also struck out more than a batter per inning (9.22 K/9) while posting a 2.73 ERA and 0.88 WHIP for the AL West champs.

Austin Jackson: I’m still shocked. Jackson led the majors in BABIP at .396, a completely ridiculous mark (see BABIP: Finally Tally- Hitters). At the same time Jackson became the 4th rookie in baseball history – since 1901 anyway – to have a season of 100 runs, 25 steals, 30 doubles, 10 triples and 180 hits. You can read who the other three are at By the Numbers. He clearly was the most productive hitting rookie in the Junior Circuit, there is no debating that.

John Jaso: When you are a catcher for a team that leads the league in victories – the Rays won 96 games – people tend to take notice. Though his 5×5 numbers were ordinary (.263-5-44-57) it should be noted that he had only 339 at-bats. Because of his ability to control the strike zone – he had an excellent 1.51 BB/K mark leading to a .372 OBP – Jaso batted leadoff 45 times for the Rays.

Brian Matusz: He tossed 175.2 innings for the Orioles racking up 10 victories against 12 loses. He also had middling ratios – a 4.30 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP – for a team that was once again a bottom feeder. However, he really stepped up his game down the stretch and completely turned his game around after the All-Star break going 7-3 with a 3.63 ERA an a 1.19 WHIP over 14 starts. All in all, it was a wonderful rookie season filled with much promise thanks to his superlative finish.

Carlos Santana: A knee injury ruined what was shaping up to be a sublime rookie season. In a mere 150 at-bats Santana had six homers, 22 RBI and 23 runs scored, a 120 game pace that would equate to 16 homers, 57 RBI and 60 runs scored. He also posted a .401 OBP leading to an impressive .868 OPS thanks in no small part to his tremendous plate discipline (1.28 BB/K).

In the end, this is a two-man race. Do you favor the everyday player (Jackson) or the pitcher (Feliz)? After much internal wrangling I’m going to award the trophy to the Tigers’ everyday center fielder but that call was by the hair on my gray chinny-chin-chin.

7- Brennan Boesch
6- Carlos Santana
5- John Jaso
4- Brian Matusz
3- Wade Davis
2- Neftali Feliz
1- Austin Jackson

By Ray Flowers