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

Man, I am so stuffed.

Easter dinner was epic. We grilled out. There was chipotle sweet potatoes, salad, veggie casserole, grilled veggies and tofu, quiche, chicken, homemade bread, home brew and to top it all off, homemade shortbread and creme fraiche ice cream drizzled with raspberry sauce.

I feel fat.

I want to go to the gym. I need to sweat off yesterday’s calories. But first I’ve got to go to work and put in my eight hours. So, in the meantime, I’ll look at these pics of some of the Red Sox pitchers and feel a little less gluttonous.

The chipmunk:

Hockey hair? Check. Hockey butt? Check. Somebody get this guy some skates!

Meet the new Guapo.

The doctors said his arm looked like spaghetti. Mmmm…spaghetti.

In the old days, there were just pitchers: not starters, not relievers, not closers, and certainly not lefty specialists. And pitchers were expected to pitch a complete game (and pick up some innings on their off days if one of the other pitchers fell short). In the days of “Spahn and Sain and Pray for Rain,” there were no fixed rotations, as such. You might save your best pitcher for when you were facing the best team—after all, why waste Josh Beckett against the Royals? But in the 50s, teams began to realize that pitchers could be used in relief, as a regular feature. This new strategy allowed managers to put their starting pitchers on a regular schedule, which also allowed those pitchers to start more games and pitch more innings. In the 60s, the four-man rotation became de rigeur and by the early 70s some teams even started fooling around with three-man rotations. But in the mid-to-late 70s this trend reversed, and by the 1980s all teams were firmly entrenched in five-starter mode, with only occasional forays back into four-starter territory in situations of dire need.

Given this trend, it’s not surprising that we witnessed, in the 2007 season, even stricter limitations on pitchers, especially young pitchers. Case in point: the Joba Rules, which carefully proscribed Joe Torre’s use of hardthrowing prospect Joba Chamberlain as a reliever, dictating that the young fireballer, who is slated to be a starter in 2008, could not be used on consecutive days and could not come in to the middle of an inning. We saw something similar with the highly-touted Clay Buchholz in the Red Sox organization. Clay was subject to a strict pitch count in each game and a strict innings limit over the course of the season; in fact, Theo Epstein had given instructions that Buchholz was to be removed from his no-hitter against Baltimore if his pitch count reached 120 (thankfully, he retired the final batter on his 115th pitch, a beautiful curveball). Sox fans hoping to see Buchholz take the hill in the postseason were disappointed when management shut him down, citing a rigid 155 innings limit for a skinny kid who started the season in Double A. While pulling any pitcher out of a no-hitter in the 9th is inexcusable, an innings limit is hard to argue with—just think of Anibal Sanchez, another rookie who threw a no-no for the Marlins in 2006 but threw just 30 innings this year before having season-ending surgery for a torn labrum in June.

Given these two trends—mandating kid gloves for young hurlers and limiting pitchers of all ages to a certain number of pitches—it is only a matter of time before we see the advent of the six-man rotation. We probably would have seen it before now if not for the expansion era and the resultant shortage of quality pitching. But these days, with plenty of young talent in the pipeline and plenty of old talent hanging on by their surgically reconstructed fingernails, the era of the six-pitcher rotation may have finally arrived.

It’s been a subject of growing discussion in Boston this month, as the Sox have six starting pitchers slated to go in 2008: Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield, Buchholz, and Jon Lester. Among fans, the six-man rotation has been discussed mostly because the Fenway Faithful are loath to see any of these players go: Beckett is the staff ace; everyone expects Dice-K to break out next year; the city practically demanded Theo find a way to re-sign Schilling; Wakefield is a perennial fan favorite, still pitches extremely effectively, and costs practically nothing; Buchholz has the no-no under his belt and nasty stuff at his fingertips; and Lester, in addition to being the clinching pitcher of the 2007 World Series, has had the city’s heart in his hands ever since his diagnosis with cancer last year.

But sentiment is no reason to make poor baseball decisions, and Theo and Co. are about as unsentimental a management team as exists in baseball: if, say, the Marlins call them this afternoon and offer them, say, Miguel Cabrera for Jon Lester, that’s a deal they’d make. But this morning, on WEEI’s morning talk show, Schilling himself explained some practical reasons why you just might see the six-starter scenario play out in Fenway Park next year. “Simple math tells you if they start out with Lester and Buchholz in the rotation and they make every start of the year, don’t miss a turn, that they won’t be able to pitch in September and October,” Schilling said, referring to the front office’s innings limits on their two crown jewels. In addition to the younsters, there’s the oldsters—Schilling referenced himself and Tim Wakefield, tacitly admitting that neither of them is exactly the innings-eating horse they once were. Plus, as Schilling also noted, Daisuke Matsuzaka was accustomed to pitching on a six-man rotation in Japan. Given the other factors at play here, and given their huge investment in Matsuzaka, the six-man rotation is something the Red Sox have to be considering. Plus, if someone gets hurt, you could just go to a regular, five-man rotation without too much disruption. As Schilling concluded, “There’s a lot of things that lend itself to this being just about the perfect storm if it’s going to happen.”

Has the era of the six-man rotation finally dawned? And if it has, are we happy about it?

If you’ve been reading my posts here at umpbump, you know that I am less than enamored of what I like to call “The Cult of the 100-Pitch Count.”

But with the way things are going, I may have to rename the cult.

In recent years, managers have become increasingly reluctant to allow starting pitchers to throw much more than 100 pitches in a game, taking them out no matter how well they are doing as soon as they get a bit past 100 throws. But last season and now this season, we’ve started to see pitchers getting taken out well under 100 pitches, for no real discernable reason other than it gets to be the 7th inning!

Take tonight’s game between the Dodgers and the Rockies. After six innings, the Dodgers were leading 1-0. Rockies starter Rodrigo Lopez had only allowed a single run in the first inning and had only thrown 68 pitches. Only 68! Dodgers starter Brett Tomko had thrown 92 pitches, but was working on a one-hit shutout! And yet, when the 7th inning rolled aroun, both pitchers were removed from the game!

For what reason? Merely because it was the seventh inning of a close game, and in those situations you have your 1-2-3 relievers which you are supposed to throw in the 7t, 8th, and 9th. It seems like pitch counts aren’t even what matters anymore, only what inning it is.

If managers are going to be this risk averse and always follow the conventional wisdom for using their pitchers (ie, always throw your two setup men and closer starting in the 7th inning of a 1-run game), why even have managers at all? Let’s just have the players consult one of those Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books from the 1980s.

“Is it the 7th inning? Turn to page 43.”

“Is it a one-run game? Bring in your second best setup man and turn to page 71.”

But seriously, even R.A. Montgomery wouldn’t pull a pitcher after only 68 pitches.

A recent AP article pointed out that there are fewer black players than ever before, and even fewer black managers.

Of the 30 MLB teams, only two have African-American managers — the Mets (Willie Randolph) and Rangers (Ron Washington). But if African-Americans think it’s tough getting a job as a major league manager, they should try being a former pitcher.

As Philadelphia Daily News columnist Paul Hagen today points out, former pitchers almost never get hired to be managers. In fact, he says, “in all the managerial changes that have been made since 1964, only 15 of the men hired were pitchers.” Padres manager Bud Black is currently the only former pitcher managing, and he’s the first to hold the job since 2001. Meanwhile, 10 current big-league skippers are ex-catchers.

How do Black and some other pitchers feel about that?

“I don’t know how it works,” said Padres future Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux. “A pitcher shakes off a catcher’s signs 20 times a game. Ten years later, the catcher’s a manager and you’re not. Figure that one out.”

…

“There’s just a feeling that pitchers don’t know anything about baseball,” Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

…

“Guy gets pigeonholed, but ultimately should be judged as an individual,” Black said. “There have been many pitchers I’ve played with who have great baseball minds equal to position players, guys who absolutely see the whole baseball universe. Just like there are some position players who can’t see the whole game in front of them.”

I gotta say, I agree with Maddux, Black and Righetti. This pitcher-bias is crazy. It’s almost certainly the reason we’ve never seen baseball genius Danny Jackson in the dugout.

By the way, if you’re black former pitcher Dave Stewart and you’re wondering why you didn’t get considered for that vacant Toronto managing job a few years back, well — and I’m not saying this is cool — but do the math.

If the first games of the 2007 have reminded us of anything, it’s that baseball will always surprise you. Nowhere is that more true than with starting pitching. For instance, we—that is, bloggers, media types, and smart alecs—spend the offseason mocking the Royals for giving Gil Meche $55 million for 5 years, because that’s one million dollars for each career win, since he came up in 1999. Also, his name is Gilbert. And what does he do? He goes out and shuts down Boston’s expensive, All-Star, computer-generated lineup. Seven and a third innings, one run, six strikeouts.

And Curt Schilling, staff ace, in the last year of his contract with the Sox, trying to convince someone to hire him for next year, having pitched well all Spring Training, yadda yadda yadda, suddenly forgets how to get outs. In 4 innings he walks in a run, gives up 8 hits, and logs five earned runs. Uff da.

Some other starter surprises so far:

• Brandon Webb, last year’s NL Cy Young, was nearly as bad, giving up five runs and eight hits in five innings.
• Derek Lowe did one better (read: worse), giving up six runs and eight hits.
• No one was worse than Jose Contreras, who outdid even last season’s depressing end. On Monday, he threw 49 pitches and couldn’t get a single out in the second inning.
• $126 million-dollar man Barry Zito pitched okay, not great, going only 5 innings and allowing two earned runs on 5 hits.
• $14.5 million-dollar man Jake Peavy out-dueled him, going six innings and giving up only two hits and shutting out the Giants, while striking out six.
• The Mariners’ starter, Felix Hernandez, is only 20 years old, making him the youngest starter since 1985. (Bonus point for the UmpBumper who knows who the youngun from ‘85 was.) The guy can’t even buy beer! And he struck out twelve in eight innings, allowing just three hits!
• On the other hand, Johan Santana threw a lousy allowed 7 hits and 4 earned runs in six innings. However, he managed to win anyway.
• This was because his foe, Erik Bedard, only lasted 4 and two-thirds innings, while giving up ten hits, six earned runs, and a couple of homers.
• Scott Kazmir pitched well enough to win, but then the bullpen blew his lead. [Oops, wait, not surprising.]
• Carlos Zambrano achieved a sort of reverse hat-trick, losing his third Opening Day game in a row, allowing 5 runs on 6 hits, 5 (yikes) walks, and 2 homers to Adam Dunn in just five innings.
• Carl Pavano didn’t suck, or injure himself.

Well sportsfans, I guess we’ll just have to play out the rest of the season. I mean, if this is how it’s going to be. Siiiigh. I don’t know about you, but I was so looking forward to a summer spent watching Grey’s Anatomy reruns.

For most of my lifetime, every single team in the major leagues carried 11 pitchers at all times – 5 starters and 6 relievers.  A little before my time, teams used to carry 10 pitchers, and way back in the day, they carried only 9 hurlers – those were the days when every team kept three catchers on the big club.

In recent years, as the Cult of the Pitch Count has spread and increasingly specialized relievers rarely if ever throw two innings, only throwing more than two in a complete emergency, teams have started routinely carrying 12 pitchers.

But in the last few years things have really started to get out of hand.

Last year two National League teams – the Brewers and the Giants – became the first teams not playing in Coors field to carry 13 pitchers for extended amounts of time.  This is somewhat loony.  Carrying 13 pitchers means that after your starting 8 position players, you only have four players on the bench at the start of the game.  Assuming one is a backup catcher you are loath to waste, that leaves only three position players for pinch hitting, double switching, and replacing injured players. God forbid the game goes to extra innings.

And at the same time, the increased number of pitchers throwing fewer innings means more pitching changes which require ever more pinch hitting and double switchery. Which you now have fewer players for, with the predictable result that we are seeing more and more at bats by relief pitchers who have no business batting, or that abomination – starting pitchers pinch-hitting for relievers on their off days.

But this season is when things got really crazy.

This year, several American League teams have been carrying 13 pitchers.  With the DH taking away a guy from the bench, this means an AL team starts the game with only 3 bench players.  Now granted, American League teams don’t really need pinch hitters or double switches much, but wow – only 3 players in the dugout…  What do we even need a manager for?

And what’s next? Are NL teams going to stand for this uppity behavior from the Junior Circuit? Or are they going to start carrying 14 pitchers to show who’s boss?

Those two way players like Brooks Kieschnick and Dave McCarty are starting to sound less like a novelty act and more like a good idea.