Kuzul

During the 2010 Spring Training, the Atlanta Braves startlingly announced that rookie Jason Heyward would be the starting right fielder on Opening Day. This announcement set the baseball world on fire as not only did Heyward not have any major league experience prior to the 2010 season, but he was also only 20 years old.

As we enter the final ten games of the major league season, we can begin to take stock of the season Heyward has had. It has been a roller coaster, no doubt, but at the end of the day the J-Hey Kid emerges as the favorite for the 2010 NL Rookie of the Year, and as one of the elite ballplayers in all the land moving into this young decade.

I hope you’re holding onto your hats, because I’m about to blow your minds.

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When it comes time to renew a player’s contract, make trades, or sign free agents, major league general managers can seem incredibly cut-throat and can be perceived as demonstrating little loyalty to their players.

But when major league general managers change jobs, they are often stricken with a dose of loyalty, and will often seek to acquire many of the prospects and youngsters they developed during their time with the previous team.

It is the reason Sammy Sosa went from Texas to the White Sox to the Cubs at an early age, as Larry Himes went from being the White Sox GM to being the Cubs GM. It is the reason the Cincinnati Reds were littered with former Twins under Wayne Krivsky, and it is the reason the Washington Nationals were littered with former Reds under Jim Bowden.

And so it is that Ed Wade, the current Houston Astros GM and former Philadelphia Phillies GM, has also had his imprint on his current and former teams during the last four years. As the Phillies have become World Champions and the Astros have become Phillies-South, players developed, signed, and traded by Ed Wade have made their mark on both teams.

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If you hit 30 home runs for a playoff team, everyone in baseball knows who you are.  If you win 20 games for a team that clinched a playoff berth a month ago, there will be no shortage of accolades.

But what if you are an above average hitter and play standout defense for a mediocre team?  What if your pitching is leaps and bounds ahead of your appallingly bad staff?  What if you got off to a slow start but were on fire in the second half?

Or, what if you are third -year player having a breakout season on a team full of over-paid and under-achieving superstars?

Then, in all likelihood, you will be unheralded.

Here is a list of the 20 most unheralded players in baseball.

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The Atlanta Braves come to town this week for a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies currently have a three-game lead in the NL East over the Braves, and the San Francisco Giants and Colorado Rockies surging out west, the Braves may very well be playing for their post-season lives.

Here’s a breakdown of what to expect from this showdown.

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Joe Torre has made it official: he will be stepping down as the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers at the end of the 2010 season, and thus comes to a close one of the great managerial careers in baseball history.

It is a bitter-sweet end, though, as after 12 brilliant season with the New York Yankees, Torre leaves the Dodgers without having brought a championship to L.A. in his three seasons there.

To make matters all the more wrenching, Torre’s Dodgers reached the NLCS in each of his first two years at Chavez Ravine, but could never get over the hump.

And then of course, there is 2010, which will forever be a footnote to an otherwise brilliant career.

But before we lose the 2010 season to history, let’s take a look back at what went wrong for the Dodgers in this, Joe Torre’s final season.

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Over the many years of player comparison and analysis, our understanding of what it means to be a great baseball player has continually evolved.

Along with that, we have also formed a better comprehension of the concept of a “bad” player.

There was a time when we would assess shortstops, catchers, and center fielders based merely on their offensive contributions, a practice we now understand to be shockingly limited. If ballplayers are to be judged, they must be judged for all of their contributions, both their hitting and their defense.

With this in mind, we take a look at the 20 worst players of the 2010 baseball season, guys who just kill their team in all facets of the game.

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As soon as the World Series ends, all eyes will turn to Cliff Lee and the free agent class of 2010 to see where some of the games biggest stars will end up at the start of the 2011 baseball season.

In advance, we take a look now at the top 20 free agents for the coming offseason.

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Here is today’s Holy Crap discovery. It has to do with the roller coaster season Andre Ethier has had.

But let’s not start in 2010. Let’s go back to 2008.

Back in 2008, you’ll recall, Manny Ramirez made kind of an ass out of himself (which is like saying back in the summer of 2003 Kobe Bryant had some trouble in Colorado), and got himself run out of Boston. The Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Manny, he had an unbelievable two months with L.A., and the Dodgers went to the NLCS.

Manny’s first day with the Dodgers was August 1st.

Coming into August 1, 2008, Ethier was having a merely solid season for the Dodgers. He was hitting .274 with a .339 on-base percentage and a .442 slugging percentage (which we’ll represent as .274/.339/.442). To that point in the season, he had 11 home runs and 46 RBI, along with 33 walks and 61 strikeouts.

Let’s make this pretty; if everyone can follow it, we’ll represent his stats as:

2008, w/o Manny: 11/46, 33/61, .274/.339/.442

These numbers were roughly equivalent, if not a little below, his career totals of 35 home runs, 165 RBI, 113 walks and 206 strikeouts in 375 career games. Prior to Manny going to LA, Ethier had hit .289/.351/.457 with a career OPS of .809.

But over the course of the final 45 games of the season, after Manny joined the team, Ethier blew up:

2008, w/Manny: 9/31, 26/27, .368/.448/.649

He hit nine home runs with 31 RBI, took 26 walks and struck out only 27 times, and his rate stats were shocking: .368/.448/.649.  He was, almost literally, a completely different player.

Now, Dodgers fans and Manny haters alike will remember that in the 2009 season, Manny got suspended for taking birth control pills (or something), and endured a 50 game suspension. That suspension ran from May 6th to July 3rd.

On May 6, 2009, Andre Ethier was hitting .317/.438/.558 with 6 home runs, 27 RBI, 20 walks, and 16 strikeouts.

2009, w/Manny Pt I: 6/27, 20/16, .317/.438/.558

The Manny left the team. Over the 48 games Ethier played in during Manny’s absence, he hit 9 home runs with 25 RBI, walked 16 times and struck out 42 times, and hit went .222/.293/.438!

2009, w/o Manny: 9/25, 16/42, .222/.293/.438

Manny’s first game back was July 3rd, and from that point on Ethier returned to respectability: 83 games, 16 home runs, 54 RBI, 36 walks, 58 strikeouts, and .285/.370/.532.

2009, w/Manny Pt 2: 16/54, 36/58, .285/.370/.532

On to 2010. Manny, of course, has had a spotty season in 2010, so we’ll try to keep this neat:

Ramirez and Ethier each missed two weeks during the first three months of the season, during which time Ethier got off to a tremendous start before slowing up a bit, and by June 29th had 12 home runs, 47 RBI, 23 walks and 35 strikeouts, and was hitting .312/.370/.547, though as late as May 14th he was hitting .392.

2010, w/Manny: 12/47, 23/35, .312/.370/.547

Manny then got hurt (or whatever it was) at the end of June/beginning of July, and missed all but seven games in July and August.  During this period, Ethier hit eight home runs with 24 RBI, 20 walks, and 48 strikeouts, while hitting .278/.345/.460.

2010, w/o Manny: 8/24, 20/48, .278/.345/.460

Manny was then waived and picked up by the White Sox at the end of August, and Ethier has fallen off the face of the earth: After eleven September games, Ethier has one home run, 3 RBI, 6 walks and 13 strikeouts, while hitting .167/.286/.278.

2010, after Manny: 1/3, 6/13, .167/.286/.278.

Put it all together, and what do we get?

2008, w/o Manny: 11/46, 33/61, .274/.339/.442
2008, w/Manny: 9/31, 26/27, .368/.448/.649

2009, w/Manny Pt I: 6/27, 20/16, .317/.438/.558
2009, w/o Manny: 9/25, 16/42, .222/.293/.438
2009, w/Manny Pt 2: 16/54, 36/58, .285/.370/.532

2010, w/Manny: 12/47, 23/35, .312/.370/.547
2010, w/o Manny: 8/24, 20/48, .278/.345/.460
2010, after Manny: 1/3, 6/13, .167/.286/.278.

What you get is numbers that don’t paint a particularly flattering picture of Andre Ethier, and make it seem pretty clear that when the Dodgers acquired Manny Ramirez, they were getting two players for the price of one.

And now that Ramirez is gone, so too is Andre Ethier.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

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Ever since I first seriously considered the concept, I have taken home/road splits seriously. If you are a Boston Red Sox fan, don’t talk to me about Jim Rice or Wade Boggs. Are you are a Chicago Cubs fan? Well, you probably don’t want to hear what I have to say about Ron Santo and Billy Williams. And if you want to hear good things about Sandy Koufax, I suggest you look somewhere else.

But if you are a fan of Carlos Gonzalez, you may just want to stop reading right here. Good news, though, Mike Stanton fans, you’re gonna love every minute of this.

Indeed, it has often been suggested that I take home/road splits a little bit too seriously. Maybe.

The most common refrain I hear from my critics is “Hey, you know that home games count too, right?”

My feeling about home/road splits, though, is that home ballparks are an impediment to truth. When we’re comparing players, we don’t want to know which players put up better numbers; we want to know who the better player actually was.

Thus, if I tell you that in 1995 Dante Bichette had 40 home runs and Mike Piazza had 32 home runs, you might conclude that Bichette was the better player.

But what if I told you Bichette hit 31 of his 40 home runs at home in 1995, leaving only nine for the road, while Piazza actually hit 23 of his 32 home runs on the road, leaving only nine at home.

It should be clear to you that Bichette wasn’t a good home run hitter, but rather that Coors Field was a good home run ballpark, and that Piazza was a way better home run hitter playing in an oppressive ballpark.

Now, consider this: if before the 1995 season the Dodgers and Rockies had traded Bichette and Piazza for one another, straight up, then logic dictates that Piazza would have hit approximately 54 home runs while Bichette would have hit 18 dongs.

Or something like that.

Which brings me to Carlos Gonzalez and Mike Stanton.

Gonzalez, of course, plays for the Rockies and is on his way to a National League batting title as well as league-leading totals in hits, slugging percentage, and total bases. Stanton, on the other hand, plays for the Florida Marlins and is having an up-and-down season, with 20 home runs and 20 doubles in 82 games, but also a meager .251 batting average, 100 strikeouts and only 28 walks.

To give you an idea of how those numbers look up against each other, have a look:

Now, obviously if this were the end of the story, I wouldn’t have written this article.

There is more. A lot more.

Gonzalez is, of course, a Colorado Rocky, and humidor or not, we have to be skeptical of his numbers. Sure enough, his home/road splits do not paint a pretty picture:

Home runs: 25 at home, seven on the road.

RBI: 67 at home, 34 on the road.

AVG: .385 at home, .288 on the road

OPS: 1.198 at home, .760 on the road.

Suffice to say, if Gonzalez were playing on a different team, in a different home ballpark, he’d be having a considerably different season.

Meanwhile, quite the opposite effect has happened with Mike Stanton, as being victimized by Sun Life Stadium (or whatever they’re calling it these days) has made him the Anti-CarGo:

Home runs: six at home, 14 on the road.

RBI: 16 at home, 33 on the road.

AVG: .172 at home, .305 on the road.

OPS: .586 at home, 1.024 on the road.

Now, to be sure, Stanton is going to need to figure out how to hit in Florida; a .172 batting average with a .586 OPS would be unacceptable even if he were playing his home games at Solder Field.

Nevertheless, look at what a beast he is away from Miami; in other words, look at what a beast he would be if he didn’t have to play his home games at Sun Life Stadium.

And, just for a purely rhetorical, academic exercise, let’s see how Stanton and Gonzalez’s road numbers alone match up with one another:

This is real folks, this is not a drill.

This is happening.

So, tell me: if you were starting from scratch and you were going to build a team that was going to play in, say, Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas, which of these players would you take?

I would take Mike Stanton in a heartbeat, and frankly I think he is the better player.

But I may just be taking this all too seriously.

Asher B. Chancey lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is a co-founder of BaseballEvolution.com.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The National League may have just lost a Cy Young candidate, but may also have gained an ERA title winner.

The Florida Marlins announced this afternoon that staff ace Josh Johnson would be shut down for the season after complaining of problems with his back and shoulder for much of the second half of the season.

Officially, Johnson has a mid-back strain and right shoulder inflammation. His back flared up on him during his August 7th start against the St. Louis Cardinals, and recently had to stop throwing during an off-day side-session because of discomfort in his back.

Thus draws to a close the most impressive season yet for the Marlins’ righty, who went 11-6 with a 2.30 ERA in 28 starts, striking out 186 batters in 183 2/3 innings.

Johnson was thought to be a long shot for the NL Cy Young Award this season, as he jockeyed for the NL ERA and strikeouts leads throughout the year with Adam Wainwright, Roy Halladay, and Ubaldo Jimenez. At this point in the year, the likelihood of his winning the award with only 11 wins, despite leading the NL in ERA, is remote at best, and almost entirely unlikely.

Nevertheless, Johnson’s early exit may mean that he will win his first ERA crown; with 183.2 innings pitched, he more than qualifies (Jake Peavy only had 166.1 innings when he won his first ERA crown in 2004), and he is currently leading Wainwright by a margin of .08 (2.30 vs. 2.38).

Neither Wainwright nor Halladay, Tim Hudson, or Matt Latos has pitched particularly well in the last couple of weeks, indicating that Johnson’s lead might be safe even despite his departure.

An ERA crown would be a nice consolation prize for Johnson, who endured nine games in which he allowed two or fewer earned runs without coming away with a victory for the Marlins because of run support.

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