Here’s the piece for tomorrow.

With the regular season winding down, those who won’t be playing in October are beginning to look forward to the Hot Stove season, and are picking through the list of free agents that will hit the market this coming winter. Part of that preparation is looking back at how previous free agents have fared after landing a big contract, and seeing what lessons can be learned from history. It turns out that the early results of last winter’s class holds some interesting lessons for those who are preparing to spend again this winter.

First, let’s just look at the free agents who had the best years in 2012 on the field. While first season performance doesn’t dictate whether a contract was a wise choice or not, these five players provided the largest boosts to their franchises with their play this year.

1. Aramis Ramirez, 3B, Milwaukee: 6.2 WAR

Ramirez was brought in to replace Fielder’s offense in Milwaukee, and he actually provided an upgrade over what the team got from their slugging first baseman the year before. Already 34, Ramirez is unlikely to repeat his career year, but swapping out Fielder for Ramirez looks like a net win for Milwaukee even before you consider the massive cost differences.

2. Aaron Hill, 2B, Arizona: 5.6 WAR

Another surprising result, Hill has been rejuvenated in Arizona, finding his early career power and supplementing it with a .300 average for the first time in his career. He’s cut down on his pop-ups and is driving the ball regularly, and there aren’t many second baseman in baseball who can match what Hill did at the plate this year.

3. Yu Darvish, SP, Texas: 4.9 WAR

While Darvish was not techncally a free agent, all teams had the option to bid on his rights, so for all intents and purposes, he was available to the highest bidder. His command has been up and down, but over the last six weeks, he’s been pounding the strike zone with nasty stuff, and his ability to keep the ball in the yard even when he’s struggling to throw strikes has allowed him to thrive in Texas.

4. Jimmy Rollins, SS, Philadelphia: 4.8 WAR

Rollins may be the surprising name on the list, but after a slow start to the year, he’s been a monster in the second half of the season, carrying the Phillies back into the playoff race despite injuries to Roy Halladay, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard. Rollins ended up back in Philadelphia after finding the market for his services pretty dry, but in retrospect, teams should have been anxious to get one of the game’s best middle infielders away from the Phillies.

5. Prince Fielder, 1B, Detroit: 4.7 WAR

The Tigers haven’t played up to expectations this year, but don’t blame Fielder – he’s done his part, providing the kind of offensive complement to Miguel Cabrera that the Tigers were expecting when they gave him a massive contract to replace the injured Victor Martinez. How Fielder would hold up as he got older was always the concern, but the Tigers will take the value now and worry about the long term ramifications of the deal later.

Shopping in free agency isn’t just about getting the best results from the players you sign, however. Since teams have budgets to operate under, getting value for the dollar frees up money to spend on other players, so franchises can often be better off landing a couple of good players at bargain prices rather than focusing on trying to pay market value for one big name star. So, instead of simply looking at the best signings by total production, here are the best free agent values of last winter.

1. Fernando Rodney, RP, Tampa Bay: 1 year/$2 million AAV plus a team option – 2.2 WAR – $0.9 million per WAR

Rodney has an outside chance to best Dennis Eckersley’s 0.61 ERA in 1990, which currently stands as the lowest ERA any pitcher has produced in a full season in Major League history. Relievers in general are generally overvalued on the free agent market, but Rodney has been an amazing bargain, and perhaps the best part of the deal is that the Rays had the foresight to include a team option for 2013 in the contract, so Rodney can’t even cash in on his amazing performance this year.

2. Aaron Hill, 2B, Arizona: 2 years/$5.5 million Annual Average Value – 5.6 WAR – $1.0 million per WAR

The going rate for free agents last year was about $5 million per win, while Hill only cost $1 million per win, an 80% discount off the market rate. Keeping the deal to just two years minimized their risk last winter, but in retrospect, they probably wish they would have gotten him locked up for three or four years now. If he comes anywhere close to repeating his performance in 2013, he’s going to land a much, much bigger paycheck next time around.

3. Josh Willingham, OF, Minnesota: 3 years/$7 million AAV – 3.9 WAR – $1.8 million per WAR

Concerns about his age (33) along with the wrong-way trends of his walk and strikeout rates drove down Willingham’s price, but he didn’t take long to make teams regret passing on one of the cheapest sluggers to sign in the last few years. He’s set a career high with 35 home runs in part because he got his contact rates back under control, and is a reminder that trends don’t always continue on a straight line.

4. Aramis Ramirez, 3B, Milwaukee: 3 years/$12 million AAV – 6.2 WAR – $1.9 million per WAR

The most productive free agent of the winter signed for just $36 million total, or just 17 percent of the total that Detroit guaranteed Fielder over the life of his deal. In a market where offensive performance is heavily rewarded, it’s rare to see a power hitting run producer come out as such a bargain, but that’s exactly what the Brewers got in Ramirez.

5. Hiroki Kuroda, SP, New York: 1 year/$10 million AAV – 3.6 WAR – $2.7 million per WAR

Kuroda’s production in LA was viewed with skepticism, especially when Brian Cashman asked him to make the switch from the NL West to the AL East. However, Kuroda’s sinker has proven just as effective against stiffer opponents, and he’s been a stabilizing force in the Yankees rotation. Perhaps most interestingly, the Yankees make him a qualifying offer and receive a draft pick as compensation if he signs elsewhere this winter, so they’ll either get him back on an another low-risk one year contract or gain an additional prospect for the future.

The one key strand that runs through the top five values? They were all on the wrong side of 30 and presumed to be on the downside of their careers. Each came at a discount due to questions about their long term value, and whether they could sustain recent successes while adjusting to their advancing age. Teams willing to place bets on older free agents did very well last winter, receiving a large bang for the buck without having to enter into a long term commitment to improve their teams in the short term.

On July 1st, the San Diego Padres stood at 29-50, a worse mark than every team in baseball besides the Chicago Cubs. They’d been outscored by 80 runs, and simply looked like a team that was far from being competitive. Since that day, however, the Padres have won 42 of 70, a .600 winning percentage that is tied for the fifth best mark in baseball. The addition of top catching prospect Yasmani Grandal and a resurgent Cameron Maybin have the offense clicking, and their second half success has people talking about the Padres as contenders in 2013.

And certainly, the Padres do have several interesting young players, and their farm system was rated as the best in the game by Keith Law before the season started, so there are reasons for Friar-related optimism. However, before we get too carried away by their recent string of strong play, it would be helpful to know whether these kinds of second half surges have actually carried over to the following season.

Over the last five years, I found eight examples of teams that posted losing records before July 1st, but had a winning percentage at least 100 points higher in the final three months of the season than they did in the first three. While the Padres mid-season turn around seems unexpected based on how they played in the first three months of the year, this phenomenon happens pretty much every season, and sometimes multiple teams pull off large second half improvements in the same year.

So, how often did those gains carry over to the following season? Well, Padres fans, you might not want to read any further, because you’re probably not going to like the answer.

Of the eight clubs that had similar leaps, only one team — the 2008 Rockies — actually improved upon their second half winning percentage in the following year, and that example comes with a fairly large asterisk, because the 2007 Rockies team made it to the World Series. They started their NL title defense with a thud, and their second half rebound and subsequent 2009 improvement was more about returning to established levels of performance. The Rockies played poorly in the first half of 2008, but those were really their only poor stretch of baseball over a three year time period, so they don’t necessarily fit the model of an upstart team having a strong finish as a precursor to what is to come.

Besides that Colorado team, every other club played worse in the following season than they did during their second half improvement. Of course, there was far more room to go down than up, so perhaps that was to be expected, but the magnitude of the overall declines doesn’t speak particularly well for the Second Half Surge theory.

On average, the seven decliners lost 67 points off their second half winning percentage, dropping from a .548 aggregate winning percentage as a group to just .478 in the following year. The 2010 Braves had the smallest decline at 19 points — and they did manage to win the NL Wild Card, so perhaps you would like to count them as a success story as well — but they were also the best of the first half teams that we were examining, having posted a .474 winning percentage in the first three months of 2009.

Four of the seven posted losing records in their follow-up season, and two of them — the 2009 Indians and 2011 Astros — posted lower winning percentages in the next season than they did in the first half of the prior year. Overall, the .478 winning percentage posted by these teams in the season after their “Second Half Surge” was slightly lower than the .480 winning percentage they posted during the season in which they appeared to be two totally different clubs.

And perhaps that small difference is the real takeaway here. At the group level, these teams posted an almost identical record in the next season as they did to their total record in the prior year, suggesting that the first half record of a team that improves significantly is just as important as the second half data. Had we just used total season winning percentage as a predictor of next season winning percentage, we’d have hit the overall mark almost dead on for these eight teams.

The Padres play of late is certainly encouraging, but it doesn’t mean that we can just ignore all the problems that were on full display in the first three months of the season. If we want to understand how teams will do next year, we should look at their entire season as a whole, and not fall into the trap of putting too much weight on recent performance. The Padres may very well be a team on the rise, but their record since the calendar turned to July is simply not enough evidence to suggest that they should be penciled in for a playoff run in 2013.

With the regular season just a few weeks away, teams are beginning to have to make their off-season plans, at least as it pertains to players on their own roster. In situations where a player has a guaranteed contract, the decision of whether to retain them or not has already been made, but arbitration eligible players and guys who have team options for 2013 force teams to make often difficult decisions. Based on their performance and their 2013 salaries, here are the five toughest calls that teams are going to have to make this winter.

Jake Peavy, SP, Chicago White Sox – $22 million team option or $4 million buyout

While Adam Dunn and Alex Rios have both had big comebacks to spark the offense, Peavy’s return to prior form has been the biggest driver of the White Sox success this year. After dealing with a variety of arm problems, Peavy is going to throw 200 innings for the first time since 2007, and while he’s not quite as dominant as he was then, his K/BB ratio (3.89) is nearly the equal of Justin Verlander (3.93), and ranks seventh in the American League among qualified starters. He’s also the rare fly ball pitcher who can succeed in the White Sox home ballpark, and while it might seem like he’s been around forever, he doesn’t turn 32 until the end of May.

However, is a pitcher with Peavy’s track record of injuries worth $18 million (the net cost of retaining him, considering the presence of the buyout) for 2013? Last winter, Hiroki Kuroda only was able to land a one year, $11 million deal with a similar skillset, and while he was several years older, he didn’t have Peavy’s history of arm problems. It is a weak market for starting pitching, however, and Peavy could probably land a three or four year deal at a reduced annual average value if the White Sox grant him free agency. The White Sox may be looking at a choice between paying him $22 million for 2013 or paying the $4 million buyout and then bidding against others who might offer something like $36 million over three years. However, even if they had to pay the buyout, signing him to 3/36 would value the additional two years at just $9 million apiece, which is probably a gamble worth making given his production.

Verdict: Decline the option, attempt to re-sign to multi-year deal at a lower AAV.

Dan Haren, SP, Anaheim: $15.5 million team option or $3.5 million buyout

Before the season, this looked like a lock to be picked up, but Haren has struggled with back problems that have led to reduced velocity, and in turn, his worst season since his rookie season in 2002. However, an off-season of rest could solve all of his issues, and he’s had stretches of effectiveness this year, including his most recent few starts in September. However, Haren’s strikeout rate has been trending in the wrong direction for four years now, and even early in the season, he wasn’t the same frontline starter he was in Arizona.

At a net cost of $12 million, the question for the Angels will really come down to whether they can afford to keep both Haren and free agent starter Zack Greinke, or if they need to choose between them. If picking up Haren’s option stands in the way of retaining Greinke, then paying the buyout and hoping to bring him back at a lower salary seems like the best bet. If they don’t believe they can re-sign Greinke, however, then they can allocate a few million that would have gone to keeping him around to picking up Haren’s option, making sure they don’t lose two starters in one fell swoop this winter.

Verdict: Decline if they can re-sign Greinke, exercise if they can’t.

Hunter Pence, OF, San Francisco: Offer arbitration at expected $14 million or non-tender

When the Phillies traded Pence to San Francisco, the fact that he was not eligible for free agency until after the 2013 season was touted as a virtue. However, as a player who has already gone through arbitration three times (thanks to achieving Super-Two status earlier in his career), Pence’s salaries have escalated to the point where offering him arbitration might result in a paycheck that is too large for what he brings to the table.

After posting a career best .378 wOBA and +4.7 WAR last year, Pence has regressed to a career worst .324 wOBA and +1.8 WAR this season, as he’s just not getting balls to fall in for hits like he used to. His core statistics are all mostly unchanged, so there isn’t evidence of massive decline, but Pence overachieved in 2010, and his current salary reflects numbers that he probably can’t put up again. If Pence is more of a +2 to +3 win player headed into his age 30 season, $14 million may just be too rich for the Giants blood, especially if they also want to retain the more productive Angel Pagan. However, if they think that Pence could bounce back to something closer to his prior form, $14 million isn’t an outrageous sum for one year, and they would have the right to make him a qualifying offer after next season, which would give them draft pick compensation if he signed elsewhere as a free agent, which they would not get if they non-tender him this winter.

Verdict: Offer arbitration, hope he’s willing to settle for a smaller raise.

Kevin Youkilis, 3B, Chicago: $13 million team option with $1 million buyout

Since the White Sox took Youkilis from their red-stained brethren, his power and walks have come back and he’s performed as well as they could have hoped, though still not at the kinds of levels he’s achieved previously. Still, at +1.7 WAR in just 266 plate appearances in Chicago, his numbers would project out to a +4 win season in over 150 games played, which is easily worth the $12 million net cost of exercising his team option.

Of course, Youkilis has actually never managed to play 150 games in a regular season before, and has only averaged 115 per season over the last four years. So, while he’s been productive when healthy, the injuries are starting to take a toll on his body, and committing a significant chunk of the payroll to a guy who might best profile as a part-time player might not be the best use of resources for the White Sox. On the other hand, this is an absolutely miserable crop of free agent infielders, so he’d be fighting guys like Jeff Keppinger for the title of best available third base option if the Whtie Sox cut him loose. Given the relative lack of alternatives, he probably won’t have to settle for much less than what the option would guarantee him.

Verdict: Decline, but don’t expect a big savings if they try to re-sign him afterwards.

Tim Hudson, SP, Atlanta: $9 million team option or $1 million buyout

Hudson has been an excellent pitcher when healthy, and $8 million isn’t a lot of money for a guy who can still get opposing batters out, but Hudson’s future comes with a lot of red flags. He turned 37 in July, and right about that time, his velocity and strikeout rates both headed south in a hurry. After averaging 90 MPH with his fastball after coming off the disabled list in May, he bottomed out at 88 MPH in July, though he’s creeped back up to 89 in the last month or so. However, his 12% strikeout rate in the second half of the season is a problem, as even a groundball specialist like Hudson needs to miss bats every now and then in order to keep opposing runners from scoring.

Given his advancing age, his back surgery last winter, and his declining velocity and strikeout rates, committing $8 million to Hudson might not be in the Braves best interests. As a Georgia resident near the end of his career, Hudson may be more willing to take a paycut to stay close to home, but how low he’ll be willing to go while still being a rather effective pitcher remains to be seen. If the Braves put him on the market, he might be this winter’s Roy Oswalt.

Verdict: Decline, then try to re-sign to an incentive-laden contract.

As we head into the final month of the season, teams that are out of the pennant chase can utilize the expanded rosters to give their pitchers a bit of a breather after a long five months, backing off workloads and skipping starts or shutting pitchers down entirely if need be. However, for those still in the race, these games are more important than ever, and the pitching staff does not have the luxury of taking such breaks.

In some cases, however, recent trends in velocity might suggest that giving an important pitcher a couple of days off might be in everyone’s best interests, especially if these teams want to see their hurlers at full strength for an extra month of playoff baseball.

Chris Tillman – Baltimore Orioles

When Tillman was a top pitching prospect in the minors, he was routinely throwing in the mid-90s, and profiled as a true power pitcher. However, his velocity the last couple of years has hovered around 90 MPH, and his results have been nothing short of terrible. So, when Tillman arrived back in the Majors in July and promptly averaged 95 MPH with his fastball in his first start of the season — a game in which he gave up just two hits in 8 1/3 innings — it gave the Orioles some hope that the Tillman of old was starting to reemerge. Unfortunately, with each subsequent start, that velocity looks farther and farther away.

Average fastball speed, by start:

Date FBv
7/4/12 94.9
7/16/12 94.1
7/21/12 93.0
7/26/12 92.8
7/31/12 91.6
8/6/12 91.0
8/11/12 92.5
8/16/12 92.6
8/21/12 92.4
8/28/12 91.9
9/2/12 89.6

Not surprisingly, Tillman was removed from his start last Sunday with elbow soreness, as his fastball was off two miles-per-hour from his previous start and over five from his electrifying debut in July. An MRI showed inflammation in his elbow, and it’s not clear when he’ll make his next start, but this was clearly not just a one day issue, as his fastball has been eroding all summer. The Orioles have seen what Tillman can do with a 90 MPH fastball, and it isn’t pretty — getting him back to throwing 95 on a consistent basis, even if it requires a break during a playoff push, should be priority number one.

Jered Weaver – Los Angeles Angels

Like Tillman, Weaver has been diagnosed with inflammation and temporarily removed from the rotation, as his recent performances haven’t been very Weaver-esque. Weaver’s biggest asset throughout his career has been home run avoidance, and in the first three months of the season, he was keeping the ball in the yard as always, allowing just five home runs in 82 innings pitched. Since the calendar turned to July, however, he’s allowed 12 home runs in 79 innings, and his gopheritis has the Angels concerned. And rightfully so.

Since Weaver has made 25 starts, we won’t list the average velocity for each, but will instead break his season into thirds, with his final start before going to the doctor listed separately.

First eight games: 88.4 MPH
Middle eight games: 87.8 MPH
Last eight games: 87.5 MPH
Final game: 86.4 MPH

Weaver’s never been the hardest thrower around, but the last month or so, he’s started to shift into Mark Buehrle territory. Because he pitches up in the zone, throwing 87 instead of 89 can change a routine fly ball into a home run, and with the Angels trying to run down a wild card spot, they’ll need the version of Weaver that throws 89 again for the stretch run.

Phil Hughes – New York Yankees

Unlike Tillman and Weaver, Hughes has not reported any issues with his arm, and he is still a member of the Yankees rotation. However, his velocity trends should have the Yankees watching him closely, as his fastball has also been getting slower the last month or so. From April through July, Hughes averaged 92.4 MPH with his fastball, and was pretty consistent in that range, sitting between 92-93 in 14 of his first 20 starts.

The last seven have been a slightly different story, however. His highest average velocity game was against Detroit, when he sat at 92.2 for the day. He only got his average over 92 in two other starts, and his fastball registered just 91.1 in his last start against the Orioles. Six of his nine starts on the season with an average fastball velocity below 92 have come in the second half of the year, and his two lowest have both come in the last five weeks.

It’s more of a subtle decline than we see with either Tillman or Weaver, but it is there, and the recent trends aren’t terribly encouraging. Given that his 15% strikeout rate was also a season low in August, the Yankees should keep a close on Hughes’ fastball in his start on Friday night.

For most of the summer, columnists — myself included — have been writing about the likely fade of the Pittsburgh Pirates. And, for most of the summer, Andrew McCutchen made us all look silly, carrying the Pirates to unexpected victory after unexpected victory. As July came to a close, the Pirates were in line for a wild card, just three games behind the Reds in the NL Central, and Andrew McCutchen was the obvious choice for National League MVP.

However, August hasn’t been kind to either McCuthen or the Pirates. With their star center fielder slumping for the first time all season — he’s hit just .252/.350/.346 in the season’s first 30 days — Pittsburgh has gone just 11-16 and have fallen to third place in the NL Central, and are now on the outside looking in at the playoff picture. And, for the first time in a couple of months, it seems possible that someone other than the Pirates star center fielder might end up with the National League Most Valuable Player Award at the end of the season.

That opening has led to rising campaigns for other deserving candidates. Buster Posey’s tremendous performance with the Giants deserves recognition, David Wright’s rebound has made him one of the game’s best players again, and Ryan Braun might actually be having a better season this year than he did a year ago when he actually won the award. However, there’s one legitimate candidate who hasn’t garnered much attention as of yet, despite the fact that he may have the best case of all – Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina.

Molina is generally known for his defensive abilities, but while he might not be the star of the Cardinals offense like Posey is in San Francisco, don’t overlook the tremendous season he’s had at the plate this season. Here is a list of the seven best hitters in the National League this season, rated by wRC+, an index scale where 100 is average and which adjusts for ballpark factors, creating a more level playing field.

1. Ryan Braun, 168 wRC+
2. Andrew McCutchen, 159 wRC+
3. Buster Posey, 152 wRC+
4. Matt Holliday, 146 wRC+
5. Melky Cabrera, 146 wRC+
6. David Wright, 146 wRC+
7. Yadier Molina, 144 wRC+

Molina has essentially been the offensive equal of Wright, Cabrera, and Holliday this season, and Posey has only been slightly better at the plate. The only hitters in the National League who you can say have been drastically better than Molina are Braun and McCutchen and, of course, neither Braun nor McCutchen are catchers.

And, with all respect to Posey as a defender, he’s no Yadier Molina behind the plate. Evaluating the defensive contributions of a catcher is more difficult than any other position because of their interactions with the pitcher, but there are things that we can isolate about a catcher’s defense, specifically their ability to control the running game.

There are 14 NL catchers who have spent at least 500 innings behind the plate this year, Molina included. The 13 other catchers have caught 9,916 innings and have seen opposing base stealers attempt 990 steals, or essentially one every 10 innings. They have thrown 28% of those would-be base stealers, or stated another way, an average defensive NL catcher (not named Molina) has allowed a runner to take an extra base once every 14 innings, and created an out with his throwing arm once every 35 innings.

Molina blows them all away in both categories. To begin with, hardly anyone runs on Molina, as opposing baserunners have only attempted 52 steals against the Cardinals when he’s been behind the plate, and that’s still probably too often, as 24 of those 52 runners (46%) have been gunned down trying to take the base. Putting it on the same scale as the rest of the NL catchers, Molina only allows a success steal of second once every 33 innings, while he creates an out with his throwing arm once every 38 innings. In other words, Molina is gunning down runners almost as often as the league average while allowing successful steals less than half as often.

As for Posey, runners have tested his arm more than twice as often, attempting an additional 53 stolen bases against him despite the fact that he’s caught 118 fewer innings. Of those extra 53 stolen base attempts, Posey has only thrown out an additional four runners. The difference between the two in controlling the running game is 49 additional bases allowed by Posey with a gain of only four outs.

A successful stolen base allowed costs a team approximately 0.25 runs on average, while throwing out an advancing runner saves a team about 0.50 runs. Applying those average run values to the difference between Molina and Posey yields a 10 run difference, which more than cancels out the seven run lead Posey has with the bat this season.

Molina is the best defensive player at one of the most important positions on the field, and this year, he’s hitting at the same level as slugging clean-up hitters. While McCutchen has been the shining star of the first four months, the Cardinals August surge was due in large part to Molina — he’s hit .417/.463/.556 this month — and he is the primary reason the team is still a strong contender in the National League.

While the MVP award usually goes to the guy with the best offensive stats, the true MVPs are often the ones who hit well while providing excellent defense at premium positions. This year, no National League player has combined elite offense and defense like Molina. After years of simply being a defensive specialist, Molina is now playing like a true MVP talent.

It’s easy to see what Mike Trout, Miguel Cabrera, or Andrew McCutchen are doing to keep their team in the race this year. All three are having fantastic seasons, and are doing their part (and then some) to help keep their team in the playoff race.

However, baseball is the major sport where an individual player has the least impact on his team’s results, and no player can single-handedly carry his team to a playoff berth. To make it to October, a team needs production from up and down the roster, but not every contributor gets their fair share of recognition. Today, we shine a light on four key role players whose performances have been instrumental in keeping their team’s playoff hopes alive.

Coco Crisp, OF, Oakland

Crisp was one of the worst players in baseball for the first two months of the season. After going 0-4 on June 6th, his batting line stood at .158/.213/.175, as he had hit into twice as many double plays as he had extra base hits. However, over the last 10 weeks, Crisp has turned his season around in a big way, hitting .307/.370/.513 over his last 258 trips to the plate. To put that in perspective, that .883 OPS matches what Mark Trumbo has put up this season. Crisp isn’t thought of as a major power hitter, but he has 26 extra base hits in the last two and a half months, all while playing in a park that significantly depresses offense. Even with his terrible start and a DL stint in May, Crisp has already racked up +2.1 WAR, and is one of the underrated cogs that is keeping the A’s in contention. While there scoffs when a rebuilding Oakland team gave a 32-year-old a two year contract as a free agent, Crisp has proven to be worth far more than he signed for, and his off-season signing was one of the best moves any team made all winter.

Wade Miley, SP, Arizona

The Diamondbacks entered the season with one of the best trios of pitching prospects in baseball, as Archie Bradley (#19), Trevor Bauer (#21), and Tyler Skaggs (#25) all rated highly on Keith Law’s pre-season top 100 prospect list. However, while Bauer struggled with his control upon being called up, Skaggs just made his MLB debut this week, and Bradley has spent the year in A-ball, rookie southpaw Wade Miley has been the main reason Arizona is still hanging around in the NL West race. The 25-year-old is doing his best Ian Kennedy impersonation, pounding the strike zone with average velocity fastballs and succeeding in a way that shouldn’t logically work in Arizona’s ballpark. However, his command has been so precise that he’s been able to limit walks and keep the ball in the yard, the combination of which has led to an ERA that is 33 percent better than the league average. In fact, the only two NL pitchers with a better park adjusted ERA are Johnny Cueto and Jordan Zimmermann. Miley didn’t have much hype coming into the season, but he’s been the one with substance so far in 2012.

Angel Pagan, OF, San Francisco

While Melky Cabrera has gotten the headlines (for reasons both good and bad), the off-season pickup of Angel Pagan hasn’t received as much attention, but he’s been an extremely valuable piece for the Giants this year. After a down year with the Mets, the Giants gave him new life on the west coast, and Pagan has responded by putting up numbers right in line with his prior career norms. His jack-of-all-trades skillset is the one that is most often undervalued, as he doesn’t excel in any one area, but instead is a solid player across the board. Pagan draws walks, makes good contact, hits for some power, steals bases, and plays a good enough center field. This year, that package of skills has added up to +2.9 WAR, and Pagan’s presence has as a switch-hitter has given the Giants offense some life at the top of the order.

Chad Billingsley, SP, Los Angeles

Last year, it appeared that Billingsley might be pitching his way out of LA. At age 26, he had the worst year of his career right after signing a three year contract, and questions about whether he’d ever mature into a reliable rotation stalwart only seemed to get louder. Over the last few months, Billingsley has seemingly put those questions to rest, and is quietly having a pretty terrific season for the Dodgers. Command was his main issue a year ago, but Billingsley managed to get through 102 batters in July while only issuing one walk the whole month, a Halladay-esque performance from a guy who has never really resembled a strike-thrower. In fact, he’s issued 10 or fewer walks in every month but May, and the result has been a career low BB% of 6.8%, turning Billingsley into a guy who can work deep into ballgames. Clayton Kershaw is the undisputed ace of the Dodgers staff, but the mid-rotation guys behind him are one of the main reasons that the Dodgers are surprise contenders this year, and the rejuvenation of Chad Billingsley is one of the keys to the success of the boys in blue.

In his early look at the postseason awards yesterday, Keith Law two Tigers among the top four on his AL MVP ballot, but neither of them were named Miguel Cabrera. While I agree with Keith that Jackson and Verlander are both having excellent seasons and are deserving of consideration, I do think there is a case to be made for Cabrera as a legitimate contender for American League MVP.

Let’s start with the obvious – no, he can’t match Mike Trout’s overall numbers right now. Trout has posted a higher batting average, higher on base percentage, and higher slugging percentage, he leads the league in stolen bases and stolen base efficiency, and he’s a fantastic defensive center fielder who adds a lot of value in the field. There isn’t a player in baseball who stack up next to Trout’s overall line, Cabrera included.

However, there are reasons to think that perhaps Cabrera has been somewhat more valuable this year than his overall batting line would suggest, and the opposite may very well be true of Trout. That reason? Performance in the clutch.

No, I’m not talking about RBIs, which I find just as useless as Keith does. Comparing the runs batted in totals between a leadoff hitter and a guy who bats third is silly, as we’d simply be rewarding Cabrera for where he hits in the line-up while punishing Trout for batting once a game with the bases empty, and hitting behind the weakest part of the Angels line-up the rest of the game. Whether Cabrera leads the league in RBIs or not should be irrelevant in the MVP discussion, or really in any discussion not involving a trivia contest.

But just because RBIs are a bad metric doesn’t mean that the idea that Cabrera has performed well in clutch situations is wrong. Using better metrics, we actually can confirm that he has, in fact, been a fantastic clutch hitter this year.

Using Leverage Index, we can quantify the relative impact any given plate appearance has on the outcome of a game, based on the score, inning, number of base runners, and how many outs there are at the time. At FanGraphs, we break every player’s plate appearances into three tiers, ranging from low leverage (game already decided) to high leverage (high chance of determining who wins and loses), and can evaluate how players have done in the “clutch” opportunities they’ve been given.

As it turns out, Cabrera has been a shining star in such situations this year.

Cabrera’s performance, by leverage:

Low Leverage: .332/.389/.613, .424 wOBA
Medium Leverage: .305/.365/.508, .369 wOBA
High Leverage: .417/.500/.833, .524 wOBA

In those 44 high leverage plate appearances, Cabrera has 15 hits, 11 of which have gone for extra bases. He’s also drawn seven walks, creating an even higher pressure situation for the pitcher, who now has to face Prince Fielder without first base being open. Cabrera’s .526 wOBA in high leverage situations easily paces the American League. The fact that Alejandro de Aza and Alex Rios — neither exactly known as fearsome clutch hitters — are also in the top five should tell you something about the year-to-year variability of clutch performance, but we’re not trying to predict whether Cabrera can keep hitting like this in high pressure situations, we’re just noting that he has so far this year.

On the other end of the spectrum, the best hitter in low leverage situations in the American League? None other than Mike Trout. In fact, Trout’s leverage splits are basically a mirror opposite of Cabrera’s.

Trout’s performance, by leverage:

Low Leverage: .376/.459/.700, .499 wOBA
Medium Leverage: .317/.369/.511, .394 wOBA
High Leverage: .276/.289/.517, .345 wOBA

Trout has been an absolute monster when the game is already determined one way or another, and just a little bit better than league average when the game is on the line. Now, you should not take these numbers to mean that Trout folds under pressure or that he lacks some personality trait that allows him to answer the call when necessary, as we’re just dealing with 38 plate appearances, and these splits will even out over a larger sample of data. I am not arguing that Cabrera has a clutch gene that Trout does not.

However, that’s not the question the MVP Award is asking. It is a retrospective question, asking who did more to help their team win in the past. And, while it is not a predictive measure that tells us anything about what will happen in the future, the reality is that Cabrera has been the best high leverage hitter in the American League this year, while Trout has produced a great majority of his offense in situations where the outcome was already fairly clear.

Clutch performance shouldn’t be the only factor in MVP voting, and we shouldn’t pretend that Trout’s performance in low and medium leverage situations hold no value. That Trout has trounced Cabrera in larger samples needs to be reflected in the voting, as does Trout’s elite base running and defense.

However, just looking at their raw batting lines overlooks the fact that Cabrera has an additional 83 plate appearances overall, and that Cabrera has done more with the important opportunities he’s been given. That difference in quantity of playing time and extreme greatness in the clutch should be enough to put Cabrera in the MVP conversation. When you adjust for the timing of when they’ve performed at their best, the gap shrinks enough that a vote for Cabrera isn’t as crazy as it might sound otherwise. Trout’s still the best candidate, but Cabrera’s as worthy as any other player on the ballot for second, and if he continues to scorch the ball for the last six weeks of the season, he might even end up as a legitimate selection for the top spot.

Last year, Eric Hosmer, Dustin Ackely, and Matt Moore put themselves on the map in their Major League debuts. Hosmer was an above average hitter at age 21, showing the special offensive skills that created expectations that he would anchor the Royals line-up for years to come. Ackley proved he could handle second base and showed more power than expected, giving the Mariners a legitimate Major League hitter that they badly needed. Moore didn’t show up until September, but in five appearances between the regular season and the playoffs, he looked like a flame-throwing ace who might just be the guy to put Tampa Bay over the top. Instead of building off their remarkable debuts, however, all three have taken significant steps backwards.

What can we learn from their struggles in 2012? To answer this question, I used the filters available on the FanGraphs Leaderboards to identify players since 1992 who had similar seasons at a similar point in their career, allowing us to see whether other players were able to bounce back, or whether this kind of failure was the sign of a long term problem. Rather than simply looking at the results, I focused the filters on the metrics that most align with a player’s development – walk rate, strikeout rate, power, and age.

Eric Hosmer, 1B, Kansas City

Comprable Seasons: Jimmy Rollins (2002), Scott Spiezio (1997), Stephen Drew (2007), Pablo Sandoval (2010), Lastings Milledge (2008)

Hosmer’s shown very good contact skills with a decent approach at the plate but minimal power, which is not usually the kind of skills you find in a young first baseman. In fact, the filter returns more middle infielders than anything else, which says something about how poorly Hosmer has hit this year. Sandoval is the name on the list the Royals have to be clinging to, as he put a poor second season behind him and has developed into one of the better hitting third baseman in the game, but unfortunately for Kansas City, he looks more like the exception than the rule.

Rollins and Drew eventually developed into good hitters compared to other shortstops, but they never hit like you’d want from a franchise first baseman. Spiezio had the most similar season from a statistical perspective, and while he improved to a degree, he spent his career as more of a role player than any kind of impact bat. Milledge was a highly touted prospect who never developed into what he was projected to be, and in turn was out of baseball by age 26. Besides Sandoval, the list of comparable players is mostly made up of guys who were never more than league average hitters. Given Hosmer’s position and expectations, he’ll have to turn into more than that to live up to the hype.

Dustin Ackley, 2B, Seattle

Comparable Seasons: Royce Clayton (1994), Chad Allen (1999), Daric Barton (2008), Ben Davis (2001)

If you thought things were grim based on Hosmer’s comps, the list of guys who had similar years to Ackley are even scarier. Clayton stuck around the league for a long time because he was a good defensive shortstop, but he never turned into much of a hitter. Allen played in parts of seven seasons and was either replacement level or worse in six of them. Barton had one monster season two years later, but then saw his offense take a nosedive and is now toiling in Triple-A. Davis, like Ackley, had been selected #2 overall his in his draft, but failed to ever turn into more than a part-time reserve catcher.

There are no Sandoval’s on this list, mostly because the combination of high strikeouts and low power is simply not an effective way to produce offense. To survive as a low power hitter in the big leagues, you have to get on base a lot, and that requires good contact skills. Ackley doesn’t have the physique to become a slugger, so he’s simply going to have to fix his strikeout problems if he’s ever going to turn into a quality big league hitter.

Matt Moore, SP, Tampa Bay:

Comparable Seasons: Tony Armas Jr (2001), Chad Billingsley (2009), Shawn Estes (1998), Gio Gonzalez (2010), Matt Cain (2006)

Finally, we get some good news. Moore’s list is essentially a who’s who of young pitchers with good stuff who just needed some refinement, with several examples of pitchers who took the necessary steps forward to become quality hurlers. Cain is probably the best possible outcome, as he’s developed into a durable workhorse who now knows how to pound the strike zone, but I’m sure the Rays would be fine if Moore followed in Gio Gonzalez’s steps as well. Billingsley is more of a middle of the road career path, as he’s been inconsistent in Los Angeles, and Estes and Armas are examples of what can go wrong, but there’s plenty of success stories on the list of pitchers who had a similar down year after being loaded with expectations.

Pitchers tend to be ever-evolving, and one minor change can set off a major directional change in their careers. For Moore, even a small improvement in his command could have a large chain reaction on his results, allowing him to pitch ahead in the count more often and forcing hitters to chase a greater amount of pitches out of the strike zone. While Hosmer’s going to have to figure out how to add some power to his game and Ackley needs to figure out how to stop striking out, Moore simply needs to figure out how to attack the zone more regularly. Given what history shows us about these three necessary improvements, Moore looks like the one to bet on for the big rebound.

As part of the new era of pitching, baseball has ushered in a wave of young fireballers who dominate through velocity. Aroldis Chapman, Stephen Strasburg, and even unheralded arms like Kansas City’s Kelvin Herrera routinely hit 100 MPH with their fastballs, and baseball has never been so populated with as many hard throwers as there are in the game today.

However, on the other end of the spectrum, there is simultaneously a group of pitchers making a splash in the big leagues with stuff that would fit in better at your local high school. Tommy Milone (Oakland), Michael Fiers (Milwaukee), Carlos Villanueva (Toronto), and Scott Diamond (Minnesota) are all establishing themselves as big league starters, and rewarding their organizations for taking a shot on a guy without a big fastball. Milone’s success after being just the extra guy added into the Gio Gonzalez trade is one of the main reasons why the A’s are surprise contenders, while Diamond, Fiers, and Villanueva have all been pleasant surprises on pitching staffs that found themselves desperate for reliable pitching mid-season.

As a group, their fastballs have averaged just 88.5 mph this year, with Diamond being the hardest thrower with an average velocity of 89.5 mph on his fastball. However, they’re all very different pitchers, and succeeding in very different ways. Diamond is a sinkerball specialist who generates a ton of ground balls, while Fiers is one of the most extreme fly ball pitchers in baseball. Milone is a control specialist who never walks anyone, while Villanueva has the 11th highest walk rate of any pitcher in baseball with at least 60 innings pitched this year. Despite the stereotype of every low velocity starter being cut from the same mold, these four are all pretty different.

Of these four low velocity hurlers, is there one whose skillset portends success more than the others? Let’s take a look at some historical comparisons for both.

Scott Diamond – 3.4% BB%, 13.5% K%, 56.5% GB%

Diamond’s the hardest of the group to find comps for, as this is a pretty rare combination of skills for a big league starter. Since 2002, only four other pitchers have thrown 100 innings in a season with a walk rate below 5%, a strikeout rate between 10-15%, and a ground ball rate over 50% – Greg Maddux, Carl Pavano, Joel Pineiro, and Chris Sampson. While any comparison to Maddux seems flattering, remember that the four years he fit into this category were all at the end of his career, so we aren’t talking about the Cy Young version of Maddux here. While he was still useful at this stage of his career, Pavano, Sampson, and Pineiro were more of a mixed bag, mixing in some above average years with some mediocre ones. Overall, this group combined to produce about league average results, which is still a nice thing to have, but well below the level that Diamond is achieving at the moment.

Michael Fiers – 5.5% BB%, 25.0% K%, 31.1% GB%

For Fiers, the comparisons are a bit easier and a bit more friendly, as there are a decent number of good pitchers who have succeeded by living up in the strike zone and trading extra fly balls for increased strikeout rates. Jered Weaver is the best version of this skillset (and also doesn’t throw particularly hard), but Colby Lewis, Scott Baker, and Ted Lilly have also posted similar seasons to what Fiers is doing right now. Those three have all fallen short of what Weaver has accomplished due to one common problem, though – the home run ball. As extreme fly ball guys, they’re more prone to giving up the long ball, and their issues with the home run caused them to settle in as more good pitchers than great ones. Weaver shows the potential this type of arm can have if he figures out how to keep the ball in the park, though the fact that he’s the only example also shows how tall of a task that really is. Still, Fiers is controlling the strike zone well enough to have success even if he does start giving up home runs. The stuff might not project as a quality starter, but like Baker and Lewis before him, Fiers may very well defy expectations.

Tommy Milone – 4.9% BB%, 17.7% K%, 39.1% GB%

Milone’s skillset is the most common of the four, as 30 different pitchers in the last 10 years have put up similar statistical seasons based on their walk rates, strikeout rates, and ground ball rates. As with any group this size, results are going to run the gambit, so you see the likes of Ben Sheets or Cliff Lee on the same list as Andy Sonnanstine and Brett Tomko. However, the significant majority belonged to pitchers who had good seasons, as only nine of the 30 pitchers on the list posted an above average ERA in the year that their profile matched up with Milone’s. Overall, the group posted an ERA that was 10 percent better than the league average, and the most representative sample was Chris Capuano, who is also a soft-tossing left-hander who gets some strikeouts despite pedestrian stuff. If Milone can have Capuano’s career minus the two Tommy John surgeries, I think the A’s will be quite happy they stole him away in the Gio Gonzalez trade.

Carlos Villanueva – 10.9% BB%, 25.0% K%, 43.5% GB%

Villanueva’s the one member of the group who isn’t arriving in the big leagues for the first time, as he made his big league debut with the Brewers in 2006. He’s also the guy whose statistical profile don’t align with his stuff at all. The list of pitchers with comparable numbers in a single season include A.J. Burnett, Yovani Gallardo, Scott Kazmir, and Jorge de la Rosa, each of whom was a live arm with serious command problems. In fact, all of the ten comparable pitchers in terms of results had an average fastball velocity of 90 mph or higher in that season, so Villanueva is essentially breaking new ground here. Villanueva’s not going to be able to harness his raw stuff in the same way that Clayton Kershaw did, and he’s got a history of walking guys in the big leagues, so we probably shouldn’t expect a big leap forward. Still, even with his current skillset, Villanueva can be a useful starting pitcher, as he mixes in his off-speed pitches frequently and racks up enough strikeouts to offset the walks.

This has already been an active week leading up to next Tuesday’s trade deadline, with names like Hanley Ramirez, Ichiro Suzuki, Zack Greinke, and Ryan Dempster hogging the headlines. However, while the big names get all of the attention, there are going to be some under the radar moves made in the next four days that could provide significant upgrades for teams down the stretch. Here, we’ll take a look at four players who might not have the name value of the guys dominating the rumor mill, but could be impact pick-ups for teams in contention.

Yunel Escobar, SS, Toronto

Escobar hasn’t hit well for the Blue Jays this year, slumping to just a .250/.299/.342 line that adds up to just a .283 wOBA, but he could still be a Major upgrade for several teams in the race. His career history suggests that he’s got more offense in his bat than he’s shown the last few months, as his career line of .285/.357/.393 is actually quite good for a shortstop, and UZR has rated him as an above average defender at the position every year since 2008. A strong finish to the year is certainly possible, but even without a huge rebound, Escobar could still represent a vast improvement for both Bay Area teams. The Giants are currently leaning on Brandon Crawford and his .269 wOBA while the A’s have had to suffer through Cliff Pennington’s .245 mark.

ZIPS projects that Escobar will be worth +1.2 WAR over the remainder of the 2012 season, a full win better than the +0.2 WAR projection for Crawford and a half win improvement over what the system sees from Pennington down the stretch. He’s not just a rental, either, as he’s under contract for $5 million in 2013 and then any team acquiring him would hold team options for both 2014 and 2015 at that same $5 million salary, so Escobar could provide both a short term boost and an answer for the next several seasons at a position that isn’t easy to fill. While his reputation in Atlanta wasn’t the best, there simply aren’t many shortstop options available, and if Escobar hits like he has previously, he could be the bargain of the trade deadline.

Paul Maholm, SP, Chicago

While all the talk has centered around the Cubs dealing Ryan Dempster and/or Matt Garza, Maholm may actually be the value buy out of the Cubs starters. He doesn’t rack up strikeouts like his rotation mates (just 6.02 K/9), but his combination of strikes (2.38 BB/9) and groundballs (50.0% GB%) make him a very solid innings eater. He could be a perfect fit for a team like the White Sox that just need a solid league average pitcher at the back of their rotation to stabilize things for the final two months of the season.

Maholm isn’t a guy that you want to give the ball to in Game 1 of a playoff series, but he’s more than capable of giving a team six quality innings every fifth day, and shouldn’t require the same kind of commitment in terms of prospects as the more high profile arms on the market. That makes him a great fit for the White Sox, who don’t have many good prospects to trade to begin with, and the club option for 2013 at $6.5 million would give them insurance in case they don’t have confidence in John Danks returning to full health. Maholm would be a legitimate improvement over Phil Humber and give Chicago a better shot at keeping pace with Detroit, and Kenny Williams may be better off with Maholm than trying to outbid everyone else for Zack Greinke.

Oliver Perez, relief pitcher, Seattle

Yes, that Oliver Perez. The guy who was last seen walking 42 batters in 46 innings with the Mets has resurfaced as a left-handed reliever in Seattle, and looks nothing like the guy who earned the scorn of everyone in Queens. His fastball has averaged 93.8 MPH this year, up a staggering 5.8 MPH from his last season in New York. The average velocity has also brought a new found ability to throw strikes, as 72 percent of the pitches he’s thrown for the Mariners have been strikes — in 2010, that number was just 56 percent.

His track record means that buyers are going to be wary of paying too high a price to acquire Perez’s services, but it’s hard to argue that he’s the same guy he was earlier in his career. The command might not stick around, but in throwing 94 out of the bullpen from the left side, Perez has a chance to be a real weapon in relief for any contender, and the Rangers and Cardinals both showed how important bullpen depth can be in October. A team like the Braves — who don’t know what to expect from Jonny Venters — would be a good fit, though in reality, every team in the playoff race should be evaluating Perez before next Tuesday.

Chris Denorfia, Outfielder, San Diego

While the Padres disappointed potential suitors for Carlos Quentin when they re-signed him earlier in the week, there’s another outfielder in San Diego who could provide real value as a strong role player and should come at a much lower cost. The highly underrated Chris Denorfia is quietly having a very strong season, hitting .294/.356/.431 while splitting time between all three outfield positions. Like most Padres hitters, his offensive line is being dragged down by the offensive black hole known as Petco Park, as he’s hitting a spectacular .330/.375/.491 on the road.

He’s not going to hit that well in a new location, but Denorfia has over 1,100 big league plate appearances and a .331 wOBA that is 10 percent above league average, so it’s about time that he got a chance to show what he can do with increased playing time. At 31, he’s not young enough to be a long term solution, but he’s probably the best fourth outfielder in the game today, and could start for a handful of contenders with question marks in the outfield. Pittsburgh might be an ideal landing spot for Denorfia, as he wouldn’t cost them a vital part of their farm system and would give them depth behind newly recalled prospect Starling Marte, allowing them to have a necessary safety net who is already used to serving as a part-time player.