Manny Ramirez belted his 500th career home run tonight in Baltimore. (Why didn’t he do it on the West Coast road trip? “It’s too late, nobody would see it.” So true.) To celebrate the occasion, UmpBump presents its third edition of Manny Being Poetic, in which we take Manny’s quotes and rearrange them into the little philosophic bits of poetry we know they really are. Previous editions are here and here. Congratulations, Manny!

499 (That One)

Nobody cares

About that one.

That one’s

Over.

Everybody will forget

About that one.

Runner Thrown Out at Third

That guy probably

Didn’t see the video.

I’ve got a cannon.

Ode to Practice

I.

I invented

That throw that I do.

I don’t know how it started,

It just happened.

Like three years ago.

II.

I have to practice it,

Though.

I started to learn

How to throw it…but

I need to practice it

More.

III.

I haven’t practiced it

At all this year.

But I’ve got it.

High Five

I think that’s how you get your All-Star vote.

I’m pretty sure that guy’s going to vote for me.

One at a time–

That’s how it’s going to happen.

To Err is Human

I thought the ball was

Not going to travel that

far, so I missed it.

Tossed (The Angry Hamstring)

I was

A little mad.

My hamstring was

A little sore.

And in those situations,

You have to react.

Batting average on balls in play, or BABIP, is a tool most useful for evaluating pitchers. While batters do show some ability to consistently hit for BABIP above or below league average from year to year, we have almost no evidence that pitchers can control the results of balls put into play against them from year to year. This means that as we approach the end of the first third of the current season, BABIP is useful to help fantasy team owners determine which pitchers are for real and which pitchers are flukes so far.

Looking at pitchers with extreme and utterly unsustainable BABIP stats (over .350 or under .250), we can easily identify 5 pitchers who are performing way above their level, and 5 pitchers who have actually pitched quite well but do not have the stats to show for it. As a fantasy team owner, you should look to trade high on the former, before they inevitably crash back down to earth, and you should look to buy low on the latter, before their luck evens out and their stats return to their actual level of performance.

Sell High – 5 Lowest BABIPs

The chart at right shows the 5 luckiest pitchers in baseball, BABIP-wise.

Shaun Marcum has looked like an ace this season, tossing some absolute gems, such as an 8-inning, 2-hit, 0-run performance against a powerful Indians lineup on May 12, and a near complete game against the even more powerful Rays on May 7. But looking at his ridiculous .194 BABIP tells us that he has actually been the luckiest pitcher in all of baseball, upon which the difference between his 2.64 ERA this season and his 4.24 career ERA prior to this season becomes much more understandable. He’s not worth keeping – trade him if you can.

With a 5-3 record and a sparkling 3.22 ERA this season, Gavin Floyd has White Sox Fans thinking that he is finally blossoming into the ace everyone has long hoped he could become, but his gift-from-the-baseball-gods .198 BABIP suggests that he is actually much closer to the pitcher of prior years who had a career ERA in the high 5’s. Maybe a White Sox fan will bite on him.

Scott Olson has teamed up with Mark Hendrickson to be one of the co-aces of a surprising Marlins team, but Hendrickson has actually been the much better pitcher; Olson’s low BABIP portends an imminent return to mediocrity. Maybe you can get something for him before he crashes and burns.

After a several-year hiatus in the bullpen, Ryan Dempster has made a triumphant return to starting pitching, posting an astonishing 2.56 ERA in 11 starts. But his crazy low BABIP will soon regress, showing Cubs fans why he is just as mediocre a pitcher as he as always been. Sell him off to a Cubs fan now.

Joe Saunders is young and good, but he is not that young, and he is not this good. He’s definitely worth keeping on your team, but lower your expectations the rest of the way. His ERA will probably be in the mid 4’s from here on out.

Buy Low – Guys Who Have Been Unlucky

Here are the five pitchers who have been most snake bitten so far – bloopers falling in or slow rollers finding holes.

Andrew Miller of the Marlins has actually pitched very well this year, but nobody knows it because he has been the unluckiest pitcher in the game so far. He is probably not even owned in your league, so if you need a pitcher, go pick him up. He should give you decent strikeouts, and with that offense and in that park, decent ERA and wins as well the rest of the way.

Bronson Arroyo is another guy who is probably not even owned in your league. But don’t be fooled by his unsightly ERA and WHIP – he is pitching just as well as he did the past two seasons, when he put up near-ace-like numbers.

Ian Snell of the Pirates broke out last year with a strong ace-like season. This year the breakout secretly continues, hidden behind some horrible bad luck. He’s still good, and should be in your fantasy rotation if you can get him.

Ubaldo Jimenez is not as bad as his numbers have shown, but he pitches half his games in Coors Field, and half of the Rockies offense is on the DL right now, so I’d avoid him.

Miguel Batista is still the same old mediocre 4th starter type he’s always been. He’ll turn it around a bit when his luck evens out, but is probably not worth owning except in AL-only leagues, especially with that terrible Mariners defense behind him.

Other guys with low BABIP (Sell, sell, sell!): Daniel Cabrera, Todd Wellemeyer, Tim Redding, Jose Contreras

Other guys with high BABIP (Buy, buy, buy!): CC Sabathia, Andy Pettite, AJ Burnett, Manny Parra

If I wrote a post a week ago about what the Reds really need, the answer would have been to sack Corey Patterson already (he of the .200 average and .240 OPS), and bring up Jay Bruce to play center already. Or at the very least, stop having Patterson bat leadoff (fer chrissakes!).

But seeing how those problems have been (finally) solved, what the Reds really need now is a fifth starter.

Any kind of fifth starter would do, actually.

The Reds actually have a pretty awesome rotation from 1-4, with ace Aaron Harang, Rookie sensation Edinson Volquez, an improving Bronson Arroyo, and high upside flamethrower Johnny Cueto. Their lineup is also pretty stacked, now that Bruce has finally been called up (as long as someone will tell Dusty Baker to stop doing stupid things like telling Adam Dunn to bunt).

But what has really been dragging the Reds down is a guaranteed loss every fifth day. Current fifth starter Matt Belisle has been thoroughly execrable, allowing 47 hits in 29 2/3 innings while posting a 1.79 WHIP and a 7.28 ERA. Original fifth starter Josh Fogg was amazingly even worse, putting up a 2.09 WHIP and a 13.09 ERA in his 3 starts.

Even the most replacement-y of replacement pitchers would be a drastic improvement at this point, and you certainly have to think that AAA stalwart Homer Bailey or Double-A ace Ben Jukich (5-2, 2.34 ERA at Chattanoga), could do better.

- What They Need Index -

Yankees fireballer Joba Chamberlain will make his long-awaited debut as a starter on Tuesday. He will be limited to 70 pitches. The entire East Coast media will be drooling.

Pedro Martinez will also make his long-awaited return to the Mets’ rotation Tuesday. Pedro claims that the Mets clubhouse would have been looser if he had been around. Let’s hope he can be awesome and injury free for the rest of the season, because who wouldn’t want to watch just a little bit more acery from one of the most entertaining pitchers of our generation?

No. 1 prospect in America Jay Bruce had 4 more hits on Friday, raising his batting average in his first 4 games to .571. That the Reds not only went out and sign Corey Patterson this winter specifically to block Bruce, but then stuck with him in the leadoff spot, for two whole months, despite his .200 average and his execrable .240 OBP, can only be taken as a searing indictment of Dusty Baker and departed GM Wayne Krivsky, and anyone else in the Reds organization who could have stepped in and put a stop to the madness. Bruce had nothing left to prove in the minor leagues since more than a year ago, and should have been starting in centerfield for the Reds on opening day.

Steeply declining Indians DH Travis Hafner has been put on the DL for generalized suckiness (officially, a “sore shoulder”). Hafner’s bat has fallen off a cliff the last two seasons, beyond what a mere sore shoulder can explain. He may not be truly this bad, but I think it is safe to say that the Indians are going to be regretting signing him to an extension through 2012 for years to come.

Red Sox ace Daisuke Matsuzaka will go on the DL with a strained rotator cuff, missing at least one start if not more. This means an encore performance of the Justin Masterson show. Everyone is talking about how all signs are as good as can be on Matsuzaka’s shoulder, but I don’t know if there can really be “good signs” when we are talking about some sort of rotator cuff problem.

The Carlos Gonzalez era has officially begun in Oakland, where the organization’s top prospect was called up on Friday and quietly got off to a fine 2 for 3 start, amid much less fanfare than that surrounding the callups of Bruce or Clayton Kershaw. I’m not sure if he’s really ready to hit in the Majors – his AAA stats still showed he has some issues with commanding the strike zone – but with Ryan Sweeney going on the DL, the A’s needed someone to play centerfield, and Gonzalez’s plus defense and rocket arm, at least, will play immediately.

Even less fanfare attended the Cardinals’ decision to call up outfielder Joe Mather, and surprisingly, send down Chris Duncan, who hadn’t exactly been sucky. It was already ridiculous how many talented young outfielders the Cardinals have all of a sudden, what with Ducan, and Rick Ankiel, and Skip Schumaker, and Ryan Ludwick, and Brian Barton. You can now add Mather to that list, as he already made a spectacular diving catch in his first game up, and he might have to be on your fantasy radar having already slugged 12 homers and posted a 1.077 OPS so far at Triple-A this season.

Rumors are starting to heat up again about Kenny Lofton possibly catching on with a big league team at last. Despite hitting .296 with 7 homers and 24 stolen bases last season, Lofton has yet to find a taker for his services this year. His defense has declined to the point where he should no longer be an everyday starter, and he can no longer hit left-handed pitching, but he can still put up strong numbers vs. right-handers and should be able to find a place on somebody’s roster as a part-timer. The Cubs and Mets continue to be rumored as destinations, and Lofton would make some sense for both squads. But in my view this is just people stirring up rumors as there has been no credible evidence that either team is willing to sign Lofton. But with lefty stick, ability to hit for average, and still-dangerous speed, it makes no sense that Lofton doesn’t at least have a role as a bench player when people like Mark Sweeney still have major league jobs.

Look, we all know by now that the Tampa Bay Rays have a pretty talented team this year, and that their league-best 33-22 record is no fluke. We know about BJ Upton, and ROY candidate Evan Longoria, and aces Kazmir and Shields. But had we quite realized that even their catcher, Dioner Navarro, is looking like the second coming of Tony Gwynn, slashing line drives left and right and batting .361 despite his equally Gwynn-esque portly frame?

This is the kind of performance that screams “fluke.” After all, this is the same Dioner Navarro who posted batting averages of .227 and .244 in his previous two seasons. We can also note that Navarro has an unsustainably high .404 BABIP so far this season.

But if we look closer, it becomes clear that Navarro has likely turned a corner in his career. At the All-Star break last season Navarro was batting an atrocious .171. Then, he switched to a new bat, changed his stance, and began going the other way more. Since then, over a span of 299 at-bats, he is batting .314.

While the high BABIP indicates that Navarro is certainly not the next Tony Gwynn, even if his BABIP were to regress to the mean, he would still be one of the better hitting catchers in baseball. And despite having been a starting catcher for 3+ seasons in the major leagues, he is still only 24 years old.

So I think it is safe to say that we can now add Navarro to the rapidly growing list of extremely boneheaded blunders made by Dodgers GM Ned Colletti. Originally a Yankees prospect, Navarro had been desperately coveted by Colletti’s predecessor Paul DePodesta, and finally secured as the centerpiece of a trade for slugger Shawn Green. Colletti then promptly appeared on the scene and shipped Navarro off to the Rays for Mark Hendrickson, who put up truly atrocious numbers as a Dodger, going 6-15 with a 5.01 ERA in 198 crappy innings of work before being non-tendered last winter. Yep, that’s all the Rays had to give up to get what looks to be a star starting catcher for years to come.

Nice one, Ned.

Is there any announcer in all of baseball worse than Ken “Hawk” Harrelson of the Chicago White Sox?

Handed what is every baseball announcer’s dream – the chance to call a walkoff home run (albiet for the other team), Harrelson was only able to barely muster up this putrid call…

I’d file this under quick laughs, except that it’s just so sad and pathetic.

I don’t purposely pick on White Sox GM Kenny Williams. I cannot deny that neither of the posts I had written about him in the past were very complimentary, which I guess is kind of like saying that The Two Coreys will undoubtedly rocket these two fine gentlemen back to super-stardom where they belong (They’re both understatements. Get it? No? Let’s move on). But I will admit that so far in 2008, the Chicago White Sox have been better than I had them pegged to be, thanks to some very surprisingly effective pitching. And I should give the guy some credit for this. So Kenny, I underestimated you and your club (*quietly whispers* i still don’t think you guys will win though… *cough*).

So why am I even mentioning Kenny? Well, upon hearing the news that A’s prospect Fautino De Los Santos had undergone Tommy John surgery this week, it reminded me of something.

You see, De Los Santos is a 22-year old pitcher who was traded by the Chicago White Sox to Oakland along with Gio Gonzalez and Ryan Sweeney in exchange for Nick Swisher during the winter. It was believed at the time that, while raw, his potential upside was higher than any of the other players involved in the deal. But the A’s shut him down in early May due to a sore elbow. And now it’s Tommy John, meaning that he’ll most certainly be out for the rest of the year, and may miss all of 2009 as well.

But this was reminiscent of another trade that the White Sox made back in 2001, when Mike Sirotka was sent packing as part of a deal that netted Kenny Williams David Wells from the Toronto Blue Jays. But Sirotka never threw a single pitch in a Toronto uniform, because his shoulder had been injured (torn labrum) before the deal ever happened. Kenny Williams (as first year GM) argued that Toronto was given all the medical reports they needed, and the Jays cried foul, claiming that vital information was withheld from them. The whole issue turned into a bit of a fiasco with the Jays appealing to Bud Selig to overturn the deal as a result. The Commish balked, essentially stating that while Chicago was very well aware of the poor state of Sirotka’s shoulder, that Toronto should have done their homework, which isn’t all that unreasonable, I suppose. As I understand it, the Jays front office did not make the trade pending a physical. It was only conducted after the trade was consummated. Oddly enough however, the first physical given by Toronto showed nothing irregular. It was only when they went for a second opinion to Dr. James Andrews that the problem was discovered. But Sirotka himself put it very nicely:

Sirotka said he was examined by White Sox doctors in early January and given a cortisone shot. He was told to let team doctors know if there was any discomfort after 10 days, but was traded.

“At the time I was getting examined, I didn’t think there was much to worry about because they didn’t seem too concerned,” Sirotka told the Sun-Times. “But one of my first reactions after being traded was I must really be hurt because I didn’t think the trade made much sense.”

It should also be noted that another player that went to Toronto in that deal, pitcher Mike Williams, was also injured before arriving in Canada, but Chicago argued ignorance on that one. According to Kenny WIlliams himself:

“After the deal, Mike Wiliams calls our minor-league trainer and says, ‘Hey, by the way, I went on my own this offseason and had an MRI. Basically what it showed is that I’ve got a bone bruise through some sort of dislocation.’

“Our trainer reported that to me. I reported that to Toronto. The player went and did this on his own. We had no knowledge of it. The doctor said it would be a month before the bone bruise could heal. I don’t know that that has changed.

“When I asked Toronto about the problem, they were very vague. I said, ‘Please do this. Send the information to our trainer so we can take a look at it ourselves, but let us know what the problems are.’ If there’s a problem, it’s a completely separate issue from Sirotka. I don’t know what Mike (Williams) was doing. He wasn’t forthright with us. It’s just a very bad coincidence.

“I did inform Gord that if there’s a problem with Mike Williams more than what the player told us, then in good faith we will go back and agree on how to make that right. That’s not at issue.”

Believe it or not, there’s more. Back in 2006, the Philadelphia Phillies also received a pitcher that was injured prior to a trade. And yes, he came from Chicago’s South Side. The acquisition of Freddy Garcia was initially considered a pretty good move for the Phils, who was in need of an “innings-eater”. And Garcia certainly fit the bill, making Philadelphia contenders going into 2007. But right at the onset of spring training, something was apparently wrong. By mid-March, there was talk of him starting the year on the disabled list.  Of course, the Phillies went on to win the NL East last year, but none of the credit went to Garcia, who made 11 starts, compiled a 5.90 ERA, and won 1 game. He made his final start on June 8th and underwent season ending surgery in August. It would come to light that Garcia had been receiving cortisone shots in his shoulder, although the pitcher denied this despite his own agent admitting its veracity.

Again, it was a case of a team (this time, the Phillies) not doing their homework. They had relied on the White Sox’ own medical reports to inform them before pulling the trigger on the deal. It was really only after the injury became apparent that people inside the game talked openly about how Garcia’s fastball had lost velocity before the trade even happened. I’m not sure where these opinions were before his shoulder exploded as a Phil, but they were loud and clear by June of ‘07. Sure, in retrospect, the numbers posed a bunch of red flags, especially his strikeout rates in ‘05 and ‘06. But I can’t find one instance where a columnist or analyst pointed this out to be problematic at the time the deal went down. Either way, it was yet another situation where the Chicago White Sox were able to unload a pitcher with a pre-existing injury.

This is not to say that Fautino De Los Santos was damaged goods before he was traded. I have no idea if this was the case and am not making an accusation. But this is now the third incident in Kenny Williams’ tenure that something like this has happened – and that’s not even including the case of Mike Williams. So you have to wonder – will front offices become far more hesitant to even deal with Kenny Williams? And why aren’t they taking more precautions than they do?

The Braves lost 1-0 last night to the Milwaukee Brewers. With the loss, the Braves fell to 6-18 on the road, compared to 22-7 at home. Moreover, they are now 2-14 in one-run games his season, including 0-11 on the road.

This is not a case of Atlanta’s patchwork bullpen blowing leads late in games. Crazily, Atlanta’s strength this season has been it’s pitching. And that’s pretty inexplicable, considering the team’s best starter (John Smoltz) and two best relievers (Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano) have spent most of the season on the DL and the guy who was penciled in as the fourth starter, Mike Hampton, continues to find new ways to get hurt.

The Braves problem is, quite simply, a total and complete lack of clutchness.

So what do the Braves need?

Two words: Derek. Jeter. After all, who is more clutch than the Captain? Nooooooobody.

Of course, it’s unlikely that Jeter will bring his unique brand of situational hitting and machismo to Hotlanta, since he’s under contract through 2010 and he’s got a full no-trade clause. So, Atlanta will probably need a plan B.

That backup plan could take the form of a deadline deal for a power hitting left fielder like Adam Dunn or Jason Bay, either of whom could replace Atlanta’s Matt Diaz/Gregor Blanco platoon, bumping Diaz and Blanco to the bench and making Atlanta a deeper team. But I think a trade for either Dunn or Bay is unlikely. Atlanta traded for Mark Teixeira at the deadline last year and that cost them several top prospects. Another late season trade would further depleat the team’s system and I don’t think GM Frank Wren wants to go there.

There has been talk that Atlanta will trade for Greg Maddux, allowing the future Hall of Famer to reunite with Smoltz and Tom Glavine. Stranger things have happened. I don’t think Maddux would agree to go anywhere other than Atlanta and I don’t think the Padres would ask for much in return, since they wouldn’t have any leverage. This seems like a possibly low risk/high reward move and I think the Braves might just make it happen.

-What They Need Index-