Kuzul

Those of us who are baseball fans generally know statistics for the greatest players of the game.

But sometimes we fail to consider how some of the greatest had altered statistics because they served their country during times of war.

Let’s consider four Hall of Fame Players whose numbers could have been so much greater.

Ted Williams is generally regarded as the greatest hitter ever to play baseball.

Williams finished his career with a lifetime average of .344. He had 521 home runs and 2654 hits.

But what many fans of today fail to realize is that Ted Williams missed almost five full seasons because of military duty in World War II and the Korean War.

Williams was trained as a pilot but saw no combat duty during WWII.  But when he returned to active duty during the Korean War, he flew combat missions. He played only 6 games in 1952 and only 37 games in 1953.

During his first military service Williams went in when he was 24 years old. After the Korean Conflict, he was still only 34 when he got out. So he was missing during the prime of his career.

Proof of this is that in 1954 when he played his first full year after the war, he hit .345 and had 29 homers.

In a 162 game average season, Ted had 188 hits and 37 home runs for his career. Let’s apply those numbers to the years he lost to military service.

If one could give Ted back the five years he served our country, he would have had 940 more hits and 185 more home runs. He would have finished his career with 3594 hits and 706 home runs.

In addition to the statistical bashing Williams took, he also suffered financially by serving his country. Controversy involving his initial draft status in 1942 cost him a major commercial contract with Quaker Oats.

He also lost his salary for three years in WWII after he had made $30,000 in 1942 playing for the Red Sox.  By the time he went to Korea he was earning a reported $100,000 per year.

The player of his era to whom Ted Williams was most frequently compared was Joe Dimaggio.  Dimaggio lost time to service in WWII as well. He served the same three years from 1943-1945 as Ted Williams.

Dimaggio was assigned as a physical education instructor and served in California and on the east coast. He never saw combat.

Dimaggio had a relatively short career of only 13 seasons primarily because of the three seasons he missed during the war.

For his career, Joe D hit .325 and finished his career with 2214 hits and 361 home runs.

Over an average of 162 games Joe averaged 207 hits per year and 34 home runs.

So if you gave him back the three years he was in the Army, Joe would have finished with 2835 hits and 463 dingers.

More realistically, Dimag would probably have hit more home runs and garnered more hits in the three years he was gone, because he was also in his prime. In 1943, the first year he lost, he would have been 28 years old.

Dimaggio also lost financially.  According to Baseball Almanac, Dimaggio made $43,750 in 1942 and 1946 when he returned. So he lost $131,250 during the War.

Bob Feller was one of the greatest pitchers ever to climb up a major league mound.  Feller lost virtually four full seasons during WWII. He came back to pitch in nine games in 1945 but he won 26 games his first full season back in 1946.

Feller enlisted in the Navy and saw combat as a Gun Captain aboard the USS Alabama.

When Feller went to military service he was only 23 years old. In the previous three seasons he had won 24, 27 and 25 games respectively.

For his 18 season career Feller won 266 games while losing 162.  He had 2581 strikeouts for his career.

If we could give him back the almost four years he lost he would have at least 63 more wins and 609 more strikeouts. But that is based on his 162 game average.

If you take his averages for the three years immediately before his service he would have won 96 more games and had 963 more strikeouts. 

Using these numbers Bob would have finished his career with 362 wins and 3544 strikeouts.

According to Baseball Almanac, Feller lost $160,000 during WWII.

Hank Greenberg earned his Hall of Fame credentials as a first baseman for the Detroit Tigers.

Greenberg was actually drafted in 1940 and was able to play only 19 games for the Tigers in 1941. He missed the next three full seasons and most of 1945 due to his military service.

Hank served in the Pacific Theater spotting bombing locations for B-29s.

Greenberg’s stats for the Hall of Fame saw him finish with a .313 career batting average and he averaged 187 hits per year for his career. His final numbers included 1628 hits and 331 home runs.

But his military service probably cost him at least 150 home runs and 750 hits.  Hank Greenberg would probably have finished with 480 home runs or more and 2400 hits if he had not served during WWII.

Based on salary figures from Baseball Almanac, Greenberg lost about $220,000 in the four years he served our country.

And Hank served in the military when he was older than the other players mentioned here. When he began the 1946 season he was 35 years old and his best years had been lost.

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Matt Harrison and Alexi Ogando had two terrific performances which have helped propel the Rangers to a 9-1 record and an early lead in the AL West. The Rangers toyed with the idea of starting Neftali Feliz this spring training, and there was considerable support to put him in the depleted rotation. However, the Ogando switch has taken pressure off of Jon Danlels and Nolan Ryan off the hook for not making the move, and Tommy Hunter’s injury has allowed both Harrison and Ogando to flourish while Feliz remains in the closer’s role.     

Harrison has shown improved velocity in his two starts against the Red Sox and Orioles. Harrison’s four and two seam fastballs have shown a lot of life and movement this season. He has averaged 90-91 mph on his fastball as a full time starters and 92.2 mph as mostly a reliever last season. However, he has averaged 93 mph in his first two starts, and he has topped out at 97.6 mph in his last start. All of his pitches, which include both fastballs, a cutter, curveball, change and slider have shown more movement in 2011. With the increased velocity and movement on his pitches, Harrison has been getting more swinging strikes (9.2 percent), and he has struck out seven per nine innings up from his career mark of five per nine.  

Harrison has shown better control so far, averaging 1.93 BB/9, better than his career 3.61 rate, and has induced groundballs at a 50 percent rate. His xFIP is impressive at 3.42 and if Harrison is able to keep his home run rate lower than in previous seasons, he could stick in the rotation for the rest of the season.   

Ogando’s starts against the Mariners and Tigers have been just as impressive. Ogando does not throw as hard as a starter, but his 93.8 mph is still above average (96 mph in 2010 as a reliever). Some scouts worry about his ability to retire left-handed batters, but he did not allow a hit to one in today’s start and he struck out two. 

Ogando’s xFIP of 3.89 indicates that he might be relying on too much contact, but he had similar numbers during his stellar 2010 season. I am a little concerned about his groundball percentage at 29.5 percent along with his reoccurring blister problem. However, Ogando’s slider has been excellent with increased usage to both types of hitters. I don’t think he will be as successful later in the season, but he is a better alternative than the lucky Tommy Hunter.

With these impressive starts, the Rangers have shown depth in a rotation that some considered average. No one believes that this group will be as a good as they have been during the first week and a half, but with this offense they don’t need to be. 

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Larry Wayne Jones has been playing for the Atlanta Braves since 1993.  Set to turn 39 on April 24, the man you all know as “Chipper” is in his 18th season with the same club—that alone is noteworthy.

But on Friday, Jones added to his already impressive legacy by collecting a pair of hits to put his career total at 2,500.

Former manager Bobby Cox was in attendance, watching his club rough up the Phillies and starter Cliff Lee—all things considered, the night was just about perfect.  Jones agreed, saying afterward, “I couldn’t have scripted it better.”

Jones became the 93rd member of the 2,500-hit club and is only the ninth switch-hitter to achieve the feat.  He’s also three RBI away from 1,500, and upon reaching that milestone, Chipper will join Eddie Murray as the only switch-hitters with that kind of production.

But as impressive as the 2,500 hits are, my first thought was of the next plateau.

Chipper Jones has played in nearly 2,300 games while compiling a lifetime .306 batting average.  And it took him this long just to get to 2,500.  In order to reach the lofty mark of 3,000 hits, he’d have to play three more seasons at his current pace.

In short, his milestone highlights how difficult it really is to get to 3,000.

Jones has hit better than .320 in a season five different times.  His best batting year came in 2008 when he led the N.L. with a .364 average.  He’s eclipsed .300 a total of 10 times.  

It would be tough to find better numbers.  Yes, he’s missed some time to injury (perhaps 1,000 at-bats’ worth), but even if he was to have those back, he’d likely still be short of the 3,000 mark.

For such an accomplished hitter to still be so far from the historic mark makes me truly appreciate how incredible 3,000 hits really is.

In the modern game’s 110-year history, only 27 players have 3,000 or more hits.

None of this is meant to detract from what Chipper has done.  The guy has been a dependable fixture in Atlanta.  He was Rookie of the Year runner-up, won an MVP, was a six-time All-Star and will almost certainly be a Hall of Fame selection.

Jones is not only one of the game’s best switch-hitters, he’s also one of the best all-around third baseman in history.  As my Bleacher Report colleague Rich Stowe points out in this piece, Chipper will probably be among the all-time top three at the hot corner when all is said and done.

But pondering his greatness and his place in the game naturally leads to thoughts of other records by other greats.

That aside, congratulations to Jones.  Here’s to one more big year. 

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I have never been a fan of platooning players in baseball. I always liked having a set lineup while giving the starter an occasional day of rest. Dusty Baker has a different idea when it comes to the Reds catching situation, and it has worked like a charm.

The combination of Ryan Hanigan and Ramon Hernandez has been more than productive both offensively and defensively. Hanigan catches Bronson Arroyo while Hernandez handles Edinson Volquez. The rest of the time, it usually depends on matchups and health.

Through the first three games of the 2011 season, the dynamic duo has put up some incredible offensive numbers. Here are the statistics (at least five at-bats), along with where they rank against the rest of Major League Baseball.

Are you in Reds Country?

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If you are a fan of pitching, then the first two days of the baseball season are for you. They are the only two games of the year where you are guaranteed to see each team’s best.

On the second day of the baseball season, we had the opportunity to see two of the game’s best: Jon Lester of the Boston Red Sox and Ubaldo Jimenez of the Colorado Rockies.

I was expecting big things from these two, but both had similarly disappointing performances on Friday afternoon.

Here are there pitching lines from Friday:

I’ll start with Lester’s performance.

I really wonder if Lester has been hanging around Josh Beckett too much. Every now and then, Beckett goes to the mound and just looks ticked off at the world. He’s surly and looks extra annoyed when the littlest things happen.

That was Lester on Friday, minus the F bombs that Beckett will drop every five minutes.

Lester went to the mound, and from the first pitch of the game, looked annoyed and ticked off at the world. He was probably really ticked off when Ian Kinsler took him deep on the second pitch of the game.

Lester didn’t strike out a batter in his five-plus innings of work, and considering his lack of velocity and zip on his fastball, this isn’t surprising. Lester averaged 93 mph on his fastball in 2010. Against the Rangers, he averaged just 91 mph.

It seemed to me that his game plan was to pitch to contact and try to reserve as many bullets as possible. I guess that might explain why Lester induced only four swings and misses.

Last year, 10.3 of Lester’s strikes were swings and misses. That number dropped to 8.2 on Friday.

Lester has always been a slow starter. Friday’s start was especially slow.

Now on to Jimenez.

I would be more concerned with Jimenez’s performance than Lester’s. Jimenez had nothing, and I mean NOTHING on Friday. According to the PitchFX tool, Jimenez averaged 93 mph on his fastball.

I am not sure what gun they use to compile their data (usually very, very accurate), but I watched a majority of that game and Jimenez was around 88-91 all game. Last year, he averaged 96 mph on his fastball.

That is a massive drop off in velocity. That’s a “something is wrong with my shoulder” drop off.

Like Lester, it seemed like Jimenez was trying to pitch to contact. For his career, Jimenez throws about 60 percent fastballs. On Friday? Only around 30 percent.

That tells me he had zero confidence in his fastball. For a guy who had one of the dominant fastballs in baseball last year (30 wFB on his fastball), that seems puzzling to me.

I am not sure what happened to either of these pitchers on Friday. Baseball has a long season, so maybe they were just trying to pace themselves. But on a day when we were expecting to see aces in Texas and Colorado, neither Lester or Jimenez pitched like one.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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A year ago, fantasy owners and Texas fans alike felt burned when the Rangers announced that then 21-year-old phenom Neftali Feliz would start the season in the bullpen. He wasn’t even supposed to be Texas’ closer—he was slated to play second fiddle to Ugueth Urbina.

We know how that story ended. By the second week of the 2010 season, Feliz, now 22, had wrested the ninth-inning job from Urbina. In 70 appearances, he threw 69.1 innings with a 2.73 ERA, striking out more than a batter per inning (9.2 K/9) and notching 40 saves (good for third in the American League) en route to upsetting Austin Jackson for the AL Rookie of the Year Award.

Now that ace Cliff Lee has returned to Philadelphia, questions have abounded about the 2010 AL pennant winners’ ability to defend their title with a weakened rotation. It was only logical that the idea of moving Feliz, who was predominantly a starting pitcher in the minors, back to the rotation would spark a lot of discussion.

Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen—at least, not in 2011. On Thursday, the Rangers announced that Feliz would return to his established role as the team’s closer.

It’s a terrible decision. 

A solid starting pitcher makes a bigger difference to a team than even the best high-leverage reliever, so keeping a young arm with even half of Feliz’ talent in the bullpen seems like a waste. 

Of course, not every pitcher has the stamina and pitch repertoire necessary to handle the increased workload and to face batters who have already seen his stuff. The Cleveland Indians’ Justin Masterson was dominant as a late-inning reliever but has struggled as a starter. The Detroit Tigers are likely to regret moving Phil Coke, a lefty reliever who can’t get right-handed hitters out, to the rotation. For every C.J. Wilson, there’s a Kyle Farnsworth.

But Feliz fits the profile of a successful starter to a T. His fastball would lose some speed if he moved to the rotation, but even if he’d lose three mph and we assume his velocity has already peaked (not likely for a 22-year-old), he’d still average over 93 mph. That’s some serious heat. 

More importantly, while Feliz goes to his heat most of the time (78.7 percent of his career pitches—that would drop if he moved to the rotation), he doesn’t need to rely solely on his fastball; he has a solid three-pitch repertoire to keep batters guessing. His curveball is fantastic: On a per-pitch basis (FanGraphs’ Pitch Valuation has it at 2.77 wCB/C), it would have been the best curve in the league if he’d had enough innings to qualify. His changeup is less impressive (-0.65 career wCH/C), but it’s pretty good for a 22-year-old’s third pitch. 

Of course, it’s understandable that Texas would want to keep Feliz in the ‘pen. With Derek Holland, Tommy Hunter and Matt Harrison ready to line up behind C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis in the rotation, Texas has no need for another starter. Meanwhile, the bullpen situation looks bleak; the organization has questions about Alexi Ogando’s ability to close, and Darren O’Day and Mark Lowe have combined for a 12.21 ERA in 14 innings. 

With that in mind, keeping Feliz as a reliever makes sense for Texas—under two conditions. First, the Rangers can’t plan on keeping him in the bullpen forever and should at least start transitioning him to a starting role by 2012. Second, manager Ron Washington must use Feliz not as a closer but as a true “relief ace.” 

At this point, it’s pretty much accepted that permanently assigning your best reliever to the ninth inning is a terribly misguided strategy. If a team is ahead by one run with the bases loaded in the sixth or seventh inning, the need for shut-down pitching is far greater than when they’re up by three with no one on in the ninth. 

Unfortunately, Washington hasn’t gotten the memo. In 16 games last postseason (with plenty of days off in between), Wash had his best bullpen guy throw just 7.1 innings, and only once did Feliz appear in a game he didn’t finish. It’s safe to say Washington’s stubbornness with respect to the closer’s role was the reason the Rangers lost the first game of the ALCS. 

Using Feliz whenever he’s most needed instead of reserving him for arbitrarily determined save situations would help the Rangers win, but it would also help Feliz’ development. In addition to giving him experience with getting out of jams—an essential skill for a starter to have—it could allow him to throw more innings.

If Texas moves Feliz to the rotation next spring after he throws a typical closer’s regimen of around 70 innings in 2011, he’s bound to experience some growing pains when his workload suddenly more than doubles.

If, on the other hand, Washington changes his tune and maximizes what he gets from his relief ace by using Feliz when he’s needed and for as long as he’s needed, the Rangers could have him throw closer to 100 frames, maybe more. That way, they could stretch him out slowly and have him make a smoother transition to a starting role in the near future. 

Of course, that’s not going to happen—the team said Feliz will be a closer, and to my knowledge they’ve never used the term “relief ace” in a public statement. Wash is an old school guy, and if he can’t be bothered to maximize his bullpen properly in October, why would he be willing to change his ways in April? 

If I were a Rangers fan watching as my team’s best pitcher is condemned to wallow away in the ninth inning, I would not be happy—yo no sería Feliz. 

For more of Lewie’s work, visit WahooBlues.com. Follow him on Twitter @LewsOnFirst or @WahooBlues.

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Nobody can argue that first base is the position at which the most dominant players in baseball play. They are big husky guys who have a knack for hitting the long ball, driving in runs and thus ultimately leading their teams to victories.

In taking a look at my top ten first basemen’s stats from 2010, I found something quite interesting. With the exception of Prince Fielder and Adam Dunn, all of the first basemen on my list were either on playoff teams or on teams that were in the playoff hunt last September. That being the case, you can’t help but notice that good teams have excellent first basemen.

This year, however, that will be different because Fielder and the Milwaukee Brewers will undoubtedly be much better, and Adam Dunn now plays for the Chicago White Sox.

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Buck Showalter has made a fool out of himself.

He was quoted as talking about yelling at Derek Jeter in a game last season for bailing out on inside pitches. He said his team could not believe he was yelling at Derek Jeter.

There is a good reason Jete bails on inside pitches.

In the history of baseball, Derek Jeter is 19th all-time in being hit by pitches. Among current players he is tied for fourth on the list with his teammate, Alex Rodriguez. Each has been hit 152 times.

Only Jason Kendall, Carlos Delgado and Jason Giambi have been hit more times than Jeter among players still active on a major-league roster.

The all-time HBP leader is Old Ee-Yah, Hughie Jennings, who last actually played in 1902. Jennings was hit a record 287 times. The only player of the modern era who was close to the record was Craig Biggio, who almost surpassed Ee-Yah, being hit 285 times.

Everyone in baseball knows Jeter likes the ball out over the plate and that he is an expert at driving the ball to right field.

He is also known for striding into the ball—at least he was in the past. He is now working on an alteration to his setup at the plate that will reduce his movement toward home plate and get his front foot down faster.

So pitchers have thrown up and in to Jeter. Of course he bails on close pitches. He has been hit in the hands a number of times and has missed some play from injuries that occurred this way.

One incident that drew a great deal of publicity and much criticism of Jeter occurred last season, when he feigned being hit and was awarded first base after a high and tight pitch came too close.

Jeter was chastised as being a poor sport, and efforts were made unsuccessfully to tarnish his iconic image because of his acting.

But nothing came of the criticism of the pitch that didn’t hit Jeter, and nothing will come of Showalter’s theatrics, which are much more ridiculous than what Jeter did.

Every player in the big leagues would have done exactly as Jeter did on that play if given the chance. They are playing a competitive sport, looking for every edge they can. If you can get on first base, that is the goal.

But Showalter’s comments are way out of line, and he needs to just shut up and sit down.

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In 2006, a flame-throwing rookie took the baseball world by storm. Ranked the sixth-best prospect in the game on Baseball America‘s preseason list, he surpassed even the wildest expectations people had for him, going 12-3 with a 2.16 ERA (2.55 FIP, 2.35 xFIP) and earned 4.1 WAR in 121 innings.

His name was Francisco Liriano, and he quickly emerged as the Twins‘ best starter—no easy feat considering his teammate, Johan Santana, went on to win the AL Cy Young.

Then disaster struck. Elbow pain limited Liriano to just two starts after July 28, and he underwent Tommy John surgery in November.

He missed the entire 2007 season, and wasn’t quite himself for two years afterwards. He went 11-17 with a 5.12 ERA and a 1.50 WHIP in 212 2/3 innings from 2008-9. His breakout rookie season seemed like a fluke, and Liriano had gained a reputation as inconsistent and injury-prone.

Butast winter, something changed, and Liriano rediscovered his lost talent. In 37 innings of work in the Dominican League, he posted a 0.49 ERA. More importantly, he showed the overpowering stuff (10.9 K/9) he had lost since his debut season while bringing his walks under control (1.7 BB/9).

The stage was set for a monster year, and Liriano did not disappoint.

In 31 starts—2010 was the first time he’d managed more than 25—he went 14-10 with a 3.62 ERA. In 191 2/3 innings, he racked up 201 strikeouts while allowing only 58 walks.

He earned 6.0 WAR for a Twins team that won its division by six games. In other words, Minnesota probably wouldn’t have made the playoffs without Liriano.

Liriano simply dominated opposing hitters. His 9.4 K/9 rate was second in the league, behind only Jon Lester. Batters chased his out-of-zone pitches at a 34.4 percent clip—good for fourth in baseball—and his 12.4 percent swinging-strike rate was the best in the game. PitchFx had his fastball averaging 94.2 mph, and no pitcher did more damage with his slider than Liriano (FanGraphs’ pitch weights had him at 19.0 wSL).

And yet, Liriano was actually extremely unlucky. His .331 BABIP was the second-highest in baseball. Yes, groundball pitchers like Liriano tend to have higher hit rates than their fly ball-inducing counterparts, but his xBABIP was exactly .300.

What might Liriano’s season have looked like with neutral luck? His 2.66 FIP put him second in the league, behind only rightful Cy Young winner Cliff Lee. The 96-point difference between his FIP and ERA marks him as the unluckiest pitcher in the AL.

Liriano’s 2.93 tERA puts him fourth in the Junior Circuit, way ahead of Cy Young candidates David Price (3.27), CC Sabathia (3.44) and Clay Buchholz (3.92).

XFIP was the least generous of the ERA estimators, putting Liriano at 3.06. And yet, that was good enough to beat every other qualified pitcher in baseball not named Roy Halladay.

What does this mean for Liriano’s 2011 season? Assuming his peripherals hold up, we could very well be looking at the best pitcher in baseball.

As his BABIP falls, his WHIP will follow. Fewer hits means a higher strand rate (Liriano’s 73.1 LOB% last year looks fine, but one would expect a pitcher of his caliber post an above-average mark), and fewer base-runners scoring at a lower rate will do wonders for his ERA.

If he can keep his HR/FB rate down—and a pitcher of his caliber shouldn’t have too much trouble controlling the long ball at Target Field—there’s no reason his ERA wouldn’t regress towards his 2.66 FIP.

Plus, fewer base-runners means fewer hitters. That will make his innings go by faster, allowing him to pitch deeper into games. He averaged less than 6.1 innings a start in 2010 and didn’t throw a single complete game. Fewer runs and more innings mean more wins.

The scary part? It seems like Liriano has been around forever, but in fact he is only 27 years old. Given his age, he could conceivably get even better this year. Twenty wins, an ERA around 2.00 and more than 200 innings are well within the realm of possibility for Liriano.

Of course, it would be ridiculous to expect a season that incredible from anyone outside a video game console. Moreover, while Liriano seems perfectly healthy now, there’s always a shadow of doubt for pitchers with his kind of injury history.

And while regression to his luck-neutral statistics is the most likely outcome, it’s no guarantee. If you roll two dice you’re always most likely to get a seven, but that doesn’t mean you’ll never roll snake eyes.

Earlier this winter, I projected Liriano to go 16-8 with a 2.92 ERA, backed up by 211 strikeouts and 63 walks in 204 IP, which would clearly make him one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Could he beat my prediction? Absolutely. He may have the highest upside of any starter in the game, and he could go on to have a truly historic season.

Don’t count on Liriano’s stats matching up with his luck-neutral numbers from last season, but the sky is the limit when he takes the mound in 2011.

For more of Lewie’s work, visit WahooBlues.com. Follow him on Twitter @LewsOnFirst or @WahooBlues.

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Over the course of four full seasons, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher James Shields has gone from a top-flight starter to a homer-prone liability. Since entering the league in the middle of the 2006 season, Shields has exhibited an elite changeup and a good curveball and slider to complement a serviceable fastball. But “Big Game James,” as he is known to the Rays faithful, has been on an alarming downward spiral, culminating in a 2010 season in which he allowed 34 home runs and ended up with a dismal 5.18 ERA.

So what happened?

Let’s start at the peak. In 2008, Shields was the No. 2 starter on the Rays AL championship team, serving as the tail end of a great one-two punch with Scott Kazmir. Shields went 14-8 with a 3.56 ERA in a stellar season that included two shutouts. After a shaky debut season in 2006, Shields had pitched well in ’07. 2008 was simply the combination of Shields’ potential reaching a peak and a chance to play on a team with great defense and run support.

That season, Shields had a nice mix of pitches—a fastball (44.9 percent of his pitches), a cutter (19.2 percent), the changeup (26.3 percent) and a curveball (9.6 percent). All of his pitches had positive values except for his fastball, which was just less than zero at a minus-1.5. This is not a bad number by any means. It simply shows that Shields’ fastball cost the Rays about 1.5 runs over the course of the season.

And, though hitters did make contact with his pitches, Shields was able to keep himself out of trouble. He induced ground balls 46.3 percent of the time, still a career high. His line-drive rate, often an indicator of how well hitters make contact, was a career low. And his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was a very good .287.

His control was very impressive in 2008, especially when it came to painting the edge of the strike zone. In this heat chart, courtesy of Fangraphs, you can see that a high volume (the red, pink, and white) of fastballs were thrown down the middle and on the outer part of the strike zone. We can safely assume that most of the fastballs down the middle were either first-pitch fastballs or 3-0 pitches, so the fact that a high volume of pitches still hit the corners is very impressive. Compare this to his 2010 chart, where you see high volumes of fastballs clustered in or around the middle of the strike zone.

When examining the changeup, a similar trend appears. Since we examined his fastball success against righties, let’s look at changeups against lefties. In 2008, the chart is incredible. Shields threw his great changeup in exactly the spots you’d like to see—down and away from the left-handed hitter. A select few pitches missed up and towards the middle of the strike zone.

Now look at 2010. He still did a decent job of locating his changeup, but many more pitches missed in the middle of the zone and up.

The bottom line is this—in 2008, Shields was a control pitcher, combining excellent command with great movement on his pitches. In 2010, for whatever reason, he was missing spots and missing them badly. The result? Ten more home runs allowed, an ERA 1.5 runs higher and a decrease in WAR from 4.1 to 2.2.

But we’re not done yet. When examining the PitchFX data for Shields, there was a very interesting development between 2008 and 2010. Remember that 44.9 percent fastball rate in 2008? Those were all four-seam fastballs. But in 2010, PitchFX recorded only 28.4 percent four-seamers. This is because a new pitch came into Shields’ arsenal—the two-seam fastball, thrown 18.7 percent of the time.

Here is the chart of this pitch against lefties. You will notice that a large volume of two-seam fastballs were thrown basically right down the pipe.

It is very hard to grasp the effects of this new pitch, but the most convincing argument against Shields’ two-seamer I could find was his pitch value. As mentioned before, in 2008 Shields had a fastball value of 1.5 runs against the Rays. In 2010, this value plummeted to 24.7 runs, an astronomical figure. In 2009, a year in which he threw 8.2 percent two-seamers, his fastball value was a horrible 13.1 runs against. And it wasn’t just his fastball that killed him in 2010. His cutter registered a value of 9.2 runs against.

In short, this is what it seems like—Shields’ four-seam fastball is fine. But his moving fastballs (cutter and two-seamer) kill him. They either don’t move enough or cannot be located well enough for them to be effective pitches. Mariano Rivera’s cutter is deadly because not only does it break a ridiculous amount, but it can be located wherever Mo wants it to be. Shields’ cutter and two-seamer seem to be the polar opposite.

If Shields is to return to form in 2011, he must reverse this trend of throwing more two-seam fastballs. And if he has to throw them, he must improve their effectiveness, whether it be through better movement or location.

Shields is not a strikeout pitcher. He learned that the hard way in 2010. The highest K/9 ratio of his career coincided with his worst season. He is a control pitcher that relies on deception and location, much like a Pedro Martinez or Greg Maddux.

Parents always tell their kids to not be someone they’re not. As much as James Shields may want to be David Price, he will always be James Shields. He will always have a killer changeup, a good fastball and a good curveball. He will never be able to blow pitches past hitters without sacrificing command.

If James Shields can figure that out, his 2011 campaign will be much like 2008. And if that happens, the Rays season in 2011 may turn out much like that magical year.

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