Astros and Craig Tatum

The Astros signed catcher Craig Tatum. In his major league career, Tatum has a -.8 WAR in 3 seasons. He has played in just 100 games and 299 PA, and his statistics so far are very unimpressive:  3.06 ABPP, .46 PPG and 554 OPS. However, with so few games and plate appearances (and since he played baseball in college), the college metric may have him measured out to be better. According to the College Metric, his statistics should be 3.12 ABPP, .58 PPG, and .609 OPS. There really isn't any reason to expect him to get any better. He has a career OBP of just .291, walks about league average, and is a groundball hitter. His secondary average is a putrid .141, and his ISO sits at .041. His PPS is just 80.87, and he creates just 2.4 runs per game. Well maybe the Astros got him because he is a defensive catcher. Nope, a -.2 D-WAR. I am not sure why teams pick players like this up. My only guess is that they are hopeful his lack of success is just small sample size (that is why I pointed out how he should do according to the college metric, I think that basically rules out the small sample size.). The Astros aren't very good, and they have a problem at the catcher position, but this isn't going to solve it.

Koyie Hill: Arbitration

The Cubs' backup catcher Koyie Hill is up for arbitration. Arbitration can't take money away from a player but perhaps it should. He has a career WAR of -2.7, and a WAR of -.9 in 2011. His career OBP is just .275, an OPS of .573 and a PPG of .53. These are about as bad as numbers get. His PPS is really pitiful at 82.161, and he walks below league average, at just 8% of his plate appearances. He is a groundball hitter, which probably leads to his less than league average BABIP at .286. His Secondary Average is just .178 and his Runs created per game is just 2.7. He has a laughable Isolated Slugging at .086 and just doesn't have anything good going for him.

This is why the Cubs aren't any good. They spend a bunch of money on a few aging free agents and then have tons of holes on their roster like Hill. Surely they can find a way to just jettison him from the roster.

Brandon Wood: Arbitration

The Angels were so sure that Brandon Wood would become a great player. In 173 games with LA (hardly a small sample), he had an OBP of .197. He had a .51 PPG and 4.62 PAPP for the Angels. This is historically bad. So the Angels finally gave up, and the Pirates picked him up. There he had a .277 OBP in 99 games, .64 PPG, and 3.29 PAPP. These numbers are still horrible. It is not hard to figure out why the Pirates collapsed. When you run guys like Brandon Wood out regularly, you aren't going to win. He had a -.6 WAR for the Pirates and a -2.5 WAR with the Angels. His PPS was just 87.8 in Pittsburgh, and he walks an embarrassing low 4.3% of the time. His career BABIP is just .240, which at such a large sample, just shows that he does not hit the ball with any kind of authority. To get a feel of just how bad Brandon Wood is, his offensive winning percentage is just .175. To show just how pathetic that is, a team with a .175 winning percentage would be the worst in history, at 28-134. It doesn't matter how much arbitration gives this guy, it is too much. The Pirates need to let him go.

Behind the horrific season Kevin Slowey is having

Perhaps I am just a sadist, but I find a horrifically ugly season interesting and entertaining. Horrific and ugly are two words that quickly come to mind when assessing Twins starting pitcher Kevin Slowey's 2011 season. The bizarre thing is that Slowey has had moderate success in the Majors before this year. In 08, he put together a 3.99 ERA, 1.154 WHIP, and a ratio of over 5 strikeouts per walk. Last season, his stats weren't quite as good, but very formidable (2.3 WAR in 08, .8 WAR last season). This year, his numbers look something like this. 0-7 (I put very little stock in pitching records), 6.54 ERA, 1.360 WHIP (not awful, and I will show you why his WHIP isn't bad in a second), a -.4 WAR, and a WASP of 6480. What went wrong? Well, it appears that Slowey's problems with the longball have finally caught up with him. His 1.5 homers allowed per 9 innings is about standard for his career and is way too high. He doesn't walk hardly anyone (averaging just .8 walks per 9 innings, an amazing number), but perhaps that is the problem. The stats seem to show he is not throwing it out of the zone at all. He has thrown 70 percent of his pitches for strikes, while the artist of quality strike throwing, Cliff Lee, is throwing 69 percent of his pitches for strikes. It is pretty easy to claim that Slowey has neither the stuff or control to live in the strike zone as much as Lee does. His batting average against is .303 and .321 on balls put in play. That means that either he is extremely unlucky or is getting the ball hit hard off him. The Twins have not been good on defense all year, and statistics seem to show that Slowey may be just unlucky this season, as his FIP (fielder independent ERA) is 4.49 (which is still a career high). Also, what was fly balls in previous years for Slowey, have turned into line drives (a career low in fly ball percentage, and career high in line drive percentage). Another thing that may hurt the "he is unlucky case" is that he hasn't even given up an infield hit. Slowey's curveball is being hit unlike its ever been hit before as Fangraphs notes that his curveball has given up 4.1 more runs than an average curveball. Is Slowey experiencing bad luck on a bad team? Sure, but he is not exactly Cy Young either.

A bright spot in the dark White season

It has been a really frustrating season for the White Sox. They have the 5th highest payroll in baseball at about a 130 million dollar payroll (at 76 wins, $1,710,526 a win, and a WASP of 5000). Big money failures like Adam Dunn (who is putting up a historically bad season) and Alexis Rios have fueled the failure. However, as in most cases, there are some shining lights. Recently, the biggest has been Alejandro De Aza. At the end of the 09 season, the White Sox claimed De Aza off waivers from the Marlins. His salary for this year has not been released (and it was 390,000 in 09) and he is arbitration eligible at the end of the year, so it is safe to say he is making about $400,000 this year. Despite being called up late and only playing in 47 games, he has been very valuable, with a 1.9 WAR and playing every outfield position. This gives him a great WASP of 210.5. His OOP is a nice 419 (not too far behind Cameron Maybin), and a PPG of 1.34 (better than both Cameron Maybin and Starlin Castro). He is another guy who strikes out a lot (about 1/5th of his at-bats, he also walks 8% of the time, a 2 strikeouts to 1 walk ratio is a nice ratio), but is still pretty productive, because when he hits the ball, magic happens (a .400 Batting average on balls put in play). It is very possible that the White Sox will use De Aza to replace Juan Pierre or Alexis Rios as they attempt to rebuild this team.