This is one in a series of posts where we laud teams’ shrewd offseason acquisitions and pan their terrible trades and silly signings.

The Braves finished six games out of first place in 2009, but their Pythagorean record had them only a game back of the Phillies. Moreover, Atlanta can expect continued improvement from Tommy Hanson, who MLB Trade Rumors’ Tim Dierkes predicts will be one of the NL’s 10 best pitchers in 2010. Super prospect Jason Heyward, meanwhile, is on his way and might make the team out of spring training (especially if he keeps shattering car windows in batting practice).

The Braves could have returned the same lineup as last season and been in position to make a playoff run.

Instead, they traded their best pitcher in a cost-cutting move.

The Braves sent Javier Vazquez to the Yankees for Melky Cabrera and two minor leaguers. Fangraphs’ Dave Cameron said the Braves got more for Vazquez than the Phils got for Cliff Lee. Tim Hudson says the Braves’ rotation will still be strong, even without Vazquez. But will it be strong enough? Atlanta’s staff will boast Hudson (who the team signed to a new contract this offseason), Jair Jurrjens, Derek Lowe, Tommy Hanson and Kenshin Kawakami, who is better suited to a relief role. It’s a good group, and could be great depending on how Hudson does in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery, and how young guns Hanson and Jurrjens progress. But the Braves’s staff could have been lights out if only ownership had been willing to spend a little more on Vazquez.

Elsewhere on the diamond, Atlanta signed Troy Glaus to play first base, a position at which he has played in only six games in his career. If Glaus is healthy, the signing could be a real coup, as the slugger is a regular threat to hit 30 home runs. But Glaus missed all but 14 games last season with St. Louis, after having arthroscopic shoulder surgery and experiencing a setback when he tried to make it back in time for opening day. Signing a first baseman to a one-year deal made sense, since the Braves expect prospect Freddie Freeman to be ready as early as 2011. But it’s a little surprising that a team that already boasts one oft-injured corner infielder (Chipper, we’re looking at you) would want to add another.

The Braves also signed the tatted up Eric Hinske, who’s played in the World Series three years in a row with three different teams. Hinske’s not good enough to play everyday, nor is he an ideal platoon partner for Matt Diaz, since both hit lefties better than righties but could be a platoon partner for the lefty-crushing Diaz.

In an ideal world, Hinske will spend most of his time on the bench, pinch hitting and providing outfield and first base depth. But that’s only possible if Heyward makes the team out of spring training. Then Cabrera and Diaz can platoon in left.

Atlanta also tinkered with its bullpen this offseason, letting Mike Gonzalez walk and trading Rafael Soriano (who surprised the team by accepting salary arbitration). GM Frank Wren signed Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito to replace them, two old guys who are looking to prove they’ve still got what it takes.

The net result?

Atlanta took a big step back by dealing Vazquez, who was worth more than 6 games above replacement last season. To make up the difference, the Braves will be betting on solid health from Jones, Wagner, Saito and Glaus, and a return to form from Lowe. And that’s a lot to hope for. If only the team had found the cash to keep Vazquez. If only.

Grade: C-

Added: OF Melky Cabrera, IF Troy Glaus, CL Billy Wagner, RP Takashi Saito.

Lost: 1B Adam LaRoche, SP Javier Vazquez, CL Rafael Soriano, RP Mike Gonzalez.

Projected lineup, rotation, and closer:

C Brian McCann
1B Troy Glaus
2B Martin Prado
SS Yunel Escobar
3B Chipper Jones
RF Jason Heyward/Eric Hinske
LF Melky Cabrera/Matt Diaz
CF Nate McLouth

SP Tim Hudson
SP Derek Lowe
SP Kenshin Kawakami
SP Jair Jurrjens
SP Tommy Hanson

CL Billy Wagner

- Hot Offseason Action Index -

Braves starter Javier Vazquez has always been a pretty decent pitcher, but this year he has really stepped up his game.  Before 2009, in his whole career Vazquez only had one season where he struck out more than a batter per inning, and that came back in 2003 when he was still with some team called the “Expos.”

But so far in five starts this year Vazquez is on an incredible pace of 12 K/9. If he were to keep that pace up all season long, he would wind up with a ridiculous 309 strikeouts.

How well is the new found ability to blow away the opposition translating stat-wise for Vazquez? Well, he is off to a pretty decent start, at 2-2 with a 3.38 ERA

But here’s the thing.  Vazquez is getting incredibly unlucky on the balls that do get put in play, yielding a brutally high .383 BABIP. His FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching), which models what his ERA should be given league averages, is a miniscule 1.73.

So is Javy Vazquez secretly of to an unbelievably awesome start to the season, which is obscured only by some really bad luck on balls in play?  Has he really pitched well enough that he deserves to have a 1.73 ERA?

My answer is “No.”  I think this is a classic case of what I view as a serious problem with FIP and K/9 as stats, especially when they interact with a high BABIP.  The high BABIP means that batted balls which normally should be outs are dropping in for hits.  Which means that Vazquez is getting many, many more chances to get strikeouts per inning! If his BABIP were normal, some of those batted balls would be caught for non-strikeout outs, and Vazquez’s K/9 would be much lower.

At least as far as I understand it, this means that FIP is significantly underestimating what Vazquez’s ERA should be.  In fact, logic dicates that any pitcher getting unlucky with BABIP should have an elevated K/9.

While I will forever refute any claim that any baseball player has supernatural clutch abilities (hi, I’m Paul the Broken Record), I understand how the inverse could be true. I do believe in headcases – that there are certain players out there who shrink when pressure rises. They could be thinking too much or lose trust in their own abilities and in the process under-perform. This makes sense to me. Because I KNOW that I’m better  at Big Buck Hunter when alone than while surrounded by girls I’m trying to impress (ladies love a good woodsman).

I’d like to think that these crack-under-pressure players are few and far between. They did, after all, make it to the bigs and this should mean that they’re pretty good at what they do. Somewhere along the way, they must have faced some trying moments, whether it be a championship game in high school, college, or the minors, or something as simple as performing well when you know that a scout is in the stands. They must have done something right to get as far as they did, right?

And yet, there are some out there like the Atlanta Braves’ Javier Vazquez, a guy who should be able to dominate but has the reputation of choking when it “matters”. This idea was exacerbated by his former manager, Ozzie Guillen, last September, who said that Vazquez hasn’t been a big game pitcher.

Javy began his MLB career in 1998 as a 21-year old pitcher for the Montreal Expos. From 2001-2003, Vazquez sported a 3.52 ERA with 8.9 K/9IP and 2.0 BB/9IP. Tantalized by this young, dominant pitcher, the Yankees acquired him in a December 2003 trade that sent Nick Johnson and Juan Rivera – two of the best prospects the Yanks had to offer – plus reliever Randy Choate north of the border.

But in his one season in pinstripes, Vazquez more or less underwhelmed, if not all together bombed. In 32 starts, he had a 4.91 ERA, his walk rate rose to 2.7 over 9, and his strikeout rate plummeted to 6.8/9IP. And it was during this time that the reputation began to build. Fairly or not, Javier Vazquez was now a guy who couldn’t pitch when all eyes were on him.

After being dealt again, this time to Arizona in 2005, Vazquez did better, but not by much, posting league average numbers mostly due to his inability to keep the baseball in the park. But in his three seasons in Chicago’s South Side, Javy had one very good year, in 2007. That was also the only season out of the three in which the ChiSox were not in contention for a division crown, finishing with 72 wins.

In fact, in Vazquez’ 11-year career, there have been 4 seasons during which he posted an ERA+ of at least 110 (ballpark adjusted figure where the league average ERA is 100. 110 would make him 10% better). In those years, his team won 67 (2000), 68 (2001), 83 (2003), and 72 (2007) games respectively. The chart below shows the relationship between Vazquez’s yearly performance and his teams’ overall records.

Based on this information, it appears that Vazquez hasn’t been able to combine personal success with team success.  In 2002, the Expos went from 68 wins the year before to 83. But Javy’s ERA+ drops to 108 from 130. In 2004, he goes from the Expos to the Bronx where the Yankees won 101. Vazquez’ ERA+ dropped that year too, from 139 to 92, and so on and so forth. Is this merely a coincidence? Or is he really a guy that just can’t perform when his team needs him to?

I decided to take a smaller slice of stats to see if anything caught my eye. I wanted to know how Vazquez fared when his team was close to a postseason berth.

There have been four seasons in Vazquez’ career when his teams have been late-season contenders (for the sake of creating a cutoff, let’s say within five games of a playoff spot on September 1st) – 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2008. I then looked at his September starts from those four years and ended up with over 141 innings worth of data.  In these 23 starts, Javier Vazquez posted an ERA of 5.08. Not good.  As a point of comparison, in every non-September start in those four years (173 games), Vazquez had an ERA of 4.17, so it’s not just that he had bad years. He had bad Septembers when his team happened to be in contention.

Wanting to try another control group, I also calculated his September starts from his other seasons as well to see if a September swoon was an annual tradition that I simply wasn’t aware of. The result? 31 starts. 2.78 ERA. Clearly, Vazquez performed better in Septembers when there was nothing at stake.

Now some of you may want to take all this information and claim that it’s sufficient evidence to brand him a headcase. Call me hardheaded, but I’m still on the fence. Why? Because even when he’s getting knocked around in these late-season starts, his peripherals remain strong (see chart at right).

The 3 walks per nine innings pitched is  a bit high. But the increased K rate and the better HR rate should be more than enough to lead to an improvement in the ERA. Instead, as I’ve mentioned, his ERA is at 5.08 – 0.76 runs more per game than his career numbers. Now there are two potential explanations for this – he’s had terrible luck or he really is the kind of guy who falls apart with RISP, especially in a high-leverage game. And I don’t know which it is (nor am I going to comb through each of these games to identify exactly how well he did. Yes, I am a bit lazy).

But I will say this. If he really was a headcase, wouldn’t we expect him to be awful in every meaningful outing? On September 14th last year, the ChiSox and Twins were tied atop the standings on the AL Central. The White Sox sent Vazquez to the hill that day to start the first game of a double header against the Tigers. And instead of crumbling, Vazquez was great, going 7 2/3, allowing three hits, two walks, no runs, and striking out eight. And in his two previous starts (both in September), he had allowed four runs in twelve innings. It was in the three starts after that when things fell apart.

Or how about in 2006, when the Sox and Twins were once again jockeying for a playoff spot, this time as the Wild Card? In his first four September starts, he had 9 earned runs in 28 1/3 IP, with at least ten Ks in three of those four outings. It’s evident that Vazquez can pitch in big games. He’s done it before. So again, is he or isn’t he a headcase?

2009 ought to be a really interesting year for Javy. As per usual, the projection systems are very high on his prospects for the season. And with the switch back to the NL East, he’s getting away from the home-run happy stadium that is The Cell which should only work to his advantage.

I also anticipate the Braves to be playing some big games this September. Despite the fact that I am a Mets fan, there’s also going to be a part of me that’s going to be pulling for him when/if that time comes. Because I still think that he’s too good to have this label attached to him.

The Chicago-Boston series this weekend is a tone-setter for the final stretch of the season, and earlier, Sarah laid out the strategy for how the South Side Sox can take it to the Fenway Sox. It’s a very convincing analysis – that is, unless, the BoSox can get to the ChiSox starters.

Chicago is a team that hits home runs, and they’ll try and score as much as possible from the get-go; a strategy that has worked for the most part. They do lead the league in home runs and they are 3d in runs scored. But they’ve also suffered losses even when scoring big and they’re not a team that’ll come back. Chicago is 11-12 when behind in the second inning, 15-19 in the third, 16-28 in the fourth, and 15-34 in the fifth, anything beyond that and you can almost bet they’ll lose.

They do have 35 comeback wins, but they’ve also blown 26 leads, and their starters have the toughest time getting over the 6th inning: they hold a collective 5.55 era.

Gotta get through those 3d and 4d innings Javy

The ChiSox might score a lot, but they’ll lose some of those games. Just a quick glance at their calendar and we see a 8-7 loss to Kansas City, a 10-6 loss to Minnesota, 10-8 loss to Cleveland, just to name a few.

Although their bullpen has been solid all year, the only reliever with a record over .500 that has pitched in more than 20 games is their closer, Bobby Jenks (and he has three blown saves), which is to say, should the BoSox get to the starter, it’ll be tough for the relievers to limit or hold the damage to allow the Chicago offense to try to get back in the game.

Tonight’s starter will be a tough cookie for the BoSox to figure out. Javier Vazquez is 3-2 with a 3.00 era in August (2-1 1.96 era in the last 3 starts) and he’s pitched 7 or more innings in each one of those, but he does have a sub .500 record, all thanks to his 5.53 era in the 3d inning (and his five long balls in the 5th). If the BoSox get to Vazquez before the 6th, probably by scoring four or five runs, then they’re good.

Tomorrow’s starter, Mark Buehrle has had a very inconsistent season, but the same framework applies. Get to him quick, and he’ll be outta there by the 5th.

Now, Sunday is a different story, as Gavin Floyd has pitched very well all year (14-6, 3.70), but it can’t negate the fact that he’s allowed five or more runs in five starts, one of which came against these very same BoSox.

So what’s the game-plan team? Score early and often.

As everyone knows, the White Sox won the World Series in 2005 primarily on the strength of their lights-out starting rotation. The front four starting quartet of Mark Buehrle, Freddy Garcia, Jon Garland, and Jose Contreras all won at least 14 games and all had ERAs of 3.87 or lower. The dominance of the quartet was underlined most clearly when each pitcher tossed a complete game in order in the Sox’ 4-1 triumph over the Angles in the ALCS.

In 2006 the rotation was supposed to be even stronger thanks to the addition of one-time ace Javier Vazquez as the 5th starter, but whether you want to call it regresion to the mean or fatigue from all those innings they threw in 2005, the original quartet all regressed in ‘06, as all four  saw their ERAs into the 4’s and threw much fewer innings.

But don’t look now (or *do* look, if you are a White Sox fan like Alejandro), because the White Sox rotation is getting back to its ace-laden look of the 2005 world champions. Freddy Garcia is gone now, having been shipped to the Phillies in the offseason, but Javier Vazquez is looking more like the pitcher that dominated as the ace of the Montreal Expos than the pitcher of recent years who looked very mediocre in stints with the Yankees and D-Banks, and rookie John Danks (acquired from Texas for Brandon McCarthy) is pitching much more like a veteran  third starter than a rookie fifth starter.

Last season, White Sox starters had a 4.65 ERA, but this year they are a full run lower, at 3.65. Garland’s 8 1/3 innings against the Royals last night marked the 17th game in a row that the White Sox starter went at least 6 innings. Indeed, so far this season the White Sox are second in the American League only to the Red Sox with 6.25 innings pitched per start, and trail only the D-Backs, Giants, and Reds in the National League, despite the fact that NL starters don’t have to face the designated hitter.

Perhaps most amazing of all, all five White Sox have allowed fewer hits than innings pitched, and as a whole they have allowed the fewest hits and the lowest batting average against in all of baseball. And it’s not like they are walking a lot of guys either, as they have yielded the fourth fewest walks of any rotation.

Although the Sox have gotten off to a somewhat lackluster start in the extremely competitive AL Central, if their rotation can keep this up all year, they will have a good shot at turning it around and making a run.

That’s one of those damn things you get pissed off about.

Javier Vazquez was working a perfect game until the fourth. He had Matt Stairs on a 0-2 count and then walked him. Fine, no-hitter still in place.

Fourth, fifth, and sixth innings go without a hint of a base hit. Maybe the third out in the sixth, but Juan Uribe made a leaping catch at short.

So I fire up my text editor to begin this post, get ready with the screen capture software to illustrate that magical moment that I foresee. But I didn’t jinx him (or did I). I started thinking about the no-hitter in the third inning, and thought about blogging it two innings later.

It’s still the seventh. One out, Doug Mientkiewicz at the plate. Weak-ass check-swing, roller up third base line. Hits the bag, base hit.

Damn. At least Thome scored a run in the game, and he has scored a run in every White Sox game this season.

Sox win 4-0, Royals on a 10-game losing streak.

That’s one of those damn things you get pissed off about.

Javier Vazquez was working a perfect game until the fourth. He had Matt Stairs on a 0-2 count and then walked him. Fine, no-hitter still in place.

Fourth, fifth, and sixth innings go without a hint of a base hit. Maybe the third out in the sixth, but Juan Uribe made a leaping catch at short.

So I fire up my text editor to begin this post, get ready with the screen capture software to illustrate that magical moment that I foresee. But I didn’t jinx him (or did I). I started thinking about the no-hitter in the third inning, and thought about blogging it two innings later.

It’s still the seventh. One out, Doug Mientkiewicz at the plate. Weak-ass check-swing, roller up third base line. Hits the bag, base hit.

Damn. At least Thome scored a run in the game, and he has scored a run in every White Sox game this season.

Sox win 4-0, Royals on a 10-game losing streak.