After winning the off-season by acquiring stars like Jose Reyes and R.A. Dickey, the Blue Jays came into the season with high hopes. The AL East was as open a race as it has been in years, and Toronto looked poised to make the leap into being a strong contender. However, with the first month of the season nearly in the books, the Blue Jays are in last place, and at 9-14, they’re already 6 1/2 games behind the division leading Red Sox.

Even with the struggles by R.A. Dickey, Mark Buehrle, and Josh Johnson, the biggest letdown has been on offense. The Blue Jays rank 28th in the majors in wRC+, ahead of only the lowly Marlins and equally struggling White Sox. It might be tempting to look at the ridiculous number of strikeouts that Colby Rasmus (42.9% K%), J.P. Arencibia (38.6% K%), and Brett Lawrie (32.5% K%), especially because all three are posting an on base percentage below .290 — but a deeper dive into the numbers suggests that the whiffs are not the problem.

Overall, the Blue Jays are striking out in 21.2% of their plate appearances, the eighth highest total for an MLB team (with pitcher’s excluded so as not to bias the list towards NL clubs). However, before you go blaming those strikeouts for the team’s offensive problems, look at the combined offense totals for the league’s 10 highest strikeout clubs, and then the 10 lowest strikeout clubs.

10 Highest K% teams: .244 BA, .314 OBP, .411 SLG, .317 wOBA, 100 wRC+, 894 runs
10 Lowest K% teams: .259 BA, .324 OBP, .395 SLG, .316 wOBA, 99 wRC+, 880 runs

The teams that strike out less hit for a higher average and get on base more often because of those extra balls in play turning into hits, but the higher contact rates come at the cost of less power, so the teams making lots of contact are actually slightly less productive overall. While we tend to think of strikeouts as a sign of offensive ineptitude, the reality is the Blue Jays are striking out less than the Braves, and Atlanta currently has the #1 offense in baseball by wRC+. The Indians, Mets, Reds, and Red Sox are also in the top 10 for strikeout rate by their hitters, and they aren’t having any problems scoring runs.

In fact, despite the notion that more contact means more productive outs that advance runners, there isn’t even much evidence to suggest that the high strikeout teams have been less efficient at scoring runs than the lower strikeout teams. As I wrote about on FanGraphs on Thursday, we can use the difference between a team’s performance in a couple of different metrics to determine how well they’ve done at turning their hits into runs. I’ll spare you all the nerdy details — you can click the link if you want to see how this efficiency metric is created — but, as the table below shows, Toronto has been the second worst team at turning their baserunners into runs, which many could attribute to their hacktastic ways.

Team Missing Runs
Indians (7.2)
Padres (8.7)
Dodgers (10.1)
Blue Jays (11.5)
Angels (13.6)

However, the larger picture doesn’t support the notion that it’s the strikeouts causing the team to strand all those runners. Again, using the top 10 teams in K%, we find that the high strikeout offenses are producing almost exactly as many runs as expected based on their raw batting lines. While the Blue Jays have dramatically underachieved, the Reds and Mets are #2 and #3 overall — St. Louis is first, if you were curious — in extra runs added through offensive efficiency, and both Cincinnati and New York are in the top 10 in team strikeout rate.

So, if it’s not the strikeouts and the low batting average, why are the Blue Jays struggling to score? The simple answer — and I know it won’t be a very popular one for those looking to point the finger at someone or something — is that balls just aren’t falling in. The Blue Jays team batting average on balls in play of .253 is last in the majors, 41 points below the league average for position players. While the Blue Jays do employ guys like Jose Bautista who regularly post low BABIPs because of his extreme fly ball tendencies, the Jays rank just 14th in fly ball percentage overall.

After their off-season makeover, the Toronto now has a number of slap hitting speed guys who are the kinds of players who usually post higher than average BABIPs. Emilio Bonifacio has a career .334 BABIP, but right now, he’s at .244. Brett Lawrie has a .308 BABIP for his career, but is at .217 for 2013. Maicer Izturis is a .294 career BABIP guy, but has just a .148 mark this season. While it’s tough to see guys make outs for weeks on end and think things are likely to improve, these guys all have established track records as significantly better offensive performers than they’ve been to date, and the primary driver of their 2013 struggles have been a lack of balls falling in for hits when they do make contact.

A single month sample of a player’s BABIP has little predictive value, so there’s no real reason to think Toronto’s going to spend the rest of the year hitting balls right at people. They might not reach full offensive potential until Jose Reyes returns, but there’s reasons for optimism surrounding the Blue Jays offense. When the hits start falling in, the runs will follow.

Opening Day was a festive occasion for Los Angeles Dodgers fans this year, and not just for the usual reasons. Spectators streamed into grand old Dodger Stadium, fresh off a winter renovation worth $100 million, content in the knowledge that for the first time since 2003 they would be watching a team that wasn’t owned by the despised and departed Frank McCourt. New stars Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford dotted a lineup that just a year before had included low-budget placeholders like James Loney and Juan Rivera, as the Dodgers welcomed the defending champion San Francisco Giants to town.

By the end of the day, the Dodgers stood victorious with a 4-0 win, but the score hardly told the story. Homegrown ace Clayton Kershaw had not only thrown a complete game shutout, he’d taken matters into his own hands to break a scoreless tie by hitting his first career homer, a shot to center off George Kontos in the eighth. No pitcher had pulled off the same feat — a shutout and a homer on Opening Day — in six decades.

The young lefty had somehow found a new way to impress, and if Dodger fans take such feats for granted, they might be forgiven. Their ace has been so consistently excellent that even a rare poor outing, like Wednesday night’s loss to San Diego, comes as something of a surprise. Before getting touched for five runs (three earned) by the Padres, Kershaw had gone 17 straight starts having allowed three runs or fewer; it’s become almost expected to assume he’ll dominate at this point.

Yet to merely place him among the ranks one of the greatest pitching talents in the game today is almost an injustice, because the same could be said about David Price, Stephen Strasburg, Justin Verlander or a half-dozen other members of the true pitching elite. With every start, Kershaw is continuing to lay the groundwork for a career that is already on the path to baseball immortality.

When Kershaw struck out San Diego first baseman Yonder Alonso with a letter-high fastball in the second inning Wednesday night, he became just the 16th pitcher in big league history to strike out 1,000 hitters before the end of his age-25 season. The list is a who’s who of pitching royalty, including seven Hall of Famers — Bert Blyleven, Don Drysdale, Bob Feller, Catfish Hunter, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson and Hal Newhouser — one active pitcher well on his way (Felix Hernandez) and one derailed only by off-field issues (Dwight Gooden).

If Kershaw maintains his current strikeout pace, he’ll end the season with around 1,215 career punchouts. That would not only give him the ninth-most in history by age 25, it would make him the second-most prolific lefty pitcher by that age, behind only former Dodgers great Fernando Valenzuela.

As impressive as that is, Kershaw ranks even higher on the list of pitchers who simply do not allow hits. In the history of the game, dating to the 19th century, exactly four pitchers have thrown as many innings as Kershaw has (972 1/3) through their age-25 season and allowed fewer than seven hits per nine innings (see table).

Ed Reulbach and Johnson made their debuts more than a century ago in a game that scarcely resembled what we see today. “Sudden Sam” McDowell’s strikeout prowess was perhaps matched only by his complete inability to know where the ball was headed when it left his hand.

As one might expect, standing among legends in strikeouts and limiting hits puts Kershaw high on the most notable list of all: run prevention. ERA+ is a simple yet effective way to measure runs allowed for pitchers from different eras, because it’s adjusted to include park factors and the league average. A score of 100 would be exactly league-average for a given year; each point above that is equal to 1 percent better than average.

Kershaw is one of only three in the last 60 years to post a career ERA (with 970 innings pitched through age 25) at least 40 percent better than the league average. Standing with Roger Clemens and Tom Seaver as his only contemporaries in that time is more than a little impressive, given that both ended their careers in the conversation for “best pitcher ever.”

If we shift our view to more advanced statistics using fielding independent pitching (FIP), the story remains the same except that more all-time greats enter the picture. Narrowing the scope to post-World War II play, just 10 pitchers top Kershaw’s 3.01 FIP at this point in his career. Again, we see Blyleven, Clemens, Gooden and Seaver, but now we also find Steve Carlton and Don Sutton — Hall of Famers both. With rare exceptions, if a pitcher has accomplished as much at this age as Kershaw has, it means that something very, very special is happening.

That truth was displayed when Kershaw won the NL Cy Young Award in 2011, becoming not only the youngest winner since Gooden in 1985, but one of just 13 hurlers to win the unofficial Pitching Triple Crown — leading the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts — since the Cy Young came into existence in 1956. He followed that with an equally outstanding 2012, which arguably should have earned him back-to-back awards, losing to R.A. Dickey largely on the strength of the knuckleballer’s fantastic narrative.

Five years ago, a 19-year-old Kershaw shocked legendary broadcaster Vin Scully — who has seen a few things in his time, to put it lightly — with a spring training curveball so vicious that Scully dubbed it “Public Enemy No. 1.” Even at the time, that began comparisons to Dodger Hall of Fame lefty Sandy Koufax, an absolutely unfair burden to place on a player less than two years out of a Texas high school.

Since then, Kershaw has done nothing but meet and exceed those expectations, and at some point in the near future, the Dodgers are almost certainly going to sign their ace to a long-term deal that will likely make him the first $200 million pitcher in baseball history. That’s great news for Dodger fans, but it’s good news for baseball as well; with every start, Kershaw continues on a trajectory that might end with his living among the all-time greats. Unless he happens to be mowing down your favorite team on a given night, it’s worth pausing to admire this kind of performance while it’s right in front of us.

Stephen Strasburg had his workload managed for him last year, and he wasn’t particularly thrilled about it. This year, Strasburg is attempting to manage his own workload, adopting a pitch-to-contact approach to getting batters out in an attempt to keep his pitch counts down and help him stay fresh for September and October. The only problem is that it might not actually make things any better.

In the 251 innings Strasburg pitched from 2010 to 2012, opposing batters made contact just 74% of the time they swung the bat, the third lowest rate in the Majors for a starting pitcher. The lack of contact translated into a 31% strikeout rate, easily the highest K% of any starter, and it wasn’t even close. Clayton Kershaw, the pitcher with the next highest strikeout rate, checked in at 25.9%. The gap between Strasburg and Kershaw was as large as the gap between Kershaw and Anibal Sanchez.

Through his first three starts of 2013, Strasburg hasn’t looked anything like the Strasburg of old, at least in terms of contact. Opposing hitters are making contact on 80% of their swings, and his strikeout rate has fallen to just 19%, slightly below the league average. Meanwhile, his ground ball rate has spiked from 44.5% to 56.9%. Strasburg has essentially traded strikeouts for ground balls. Crash Davis would be proud.

However, despite the change, Strasburg hasn’t actually become that much more efficient. During the last three years, he averaged 3.92 pitches per batter faced while racking up a ton of strikeouts. As a pitch-to-contact groundball guy, he’s averaged 3.87 pitches per batter faced this season. Even if he stays on the mound for 220 innings this year, he’d face approximately 900 batters over the course of the season. At his current rate, that would take him 3,486 pitches. With his 2010-2012 numbers, 900 batters would take 3,526 pitches. That’s 40 fewer pitches over the entire year. One fewer pitch per start.

Even if we think that there’s some kind of learning curve, and that Strasburg will become more efficient as he gets more comfortable trying to get ground balls, the data shows that there just isn’t a big difference between the number of pitches thrown by groundball pitchers or strikeout pitchers.

The 25 starting pitchers with the highest ground ball rates in the majors last year — minimum 100 innings pitched — combined to average 3.69 pitches per batter faced. The 25 starting pitchers with the highest strikeout rates averaged 3.89 pitches per batter faced, so the groundball pitchers were more efficient on a per batter basis. However, because groundball pitchers have to rely on their defense to help them make outs, and there are more opportunities for batters to reach on a ground ball, the pitch-to-contact guys also faced more batters each inning. Here are the total comparisons for both groups.

Over 220 innings pitched, the total difference in pitches per inning amounts to 92 fewer pitches thrown by the ground ball group. That’s basically three fewer pitches per game, which might be enough to earn Strasburg one extra batter over the course of each start. However, in exchange for that marginal gain in pitch efficiency, there’s a trade-off in performance.

The strikeout pitchers combined to post an ERA- of 87 last year, which means that as a group, they prevented runs at a rate 13 percent better than the league average. Meanwhile, the ground ball pitchers posted an ERA- of 102, so they gave up two percent more runs than league average while they were on the mound. Put simply, strikeout pitchers are more effective than ground ball pitchers, because strikeouts are outs and ground balls are only sometimes outs.

This doesn’t mean that ground balls are evil and that Strasburg should go for a strikeout of every batter, of course. There is a balance to be struck between complete domination and efficiency, and pitchers like Roy Halladay — at least, the healthy version we used to see — have shown that you can use both ground balls and strikeouts to great success. Strasburg doesn’t need to maintain a 30% strikeout rate to be a great pitcher.

But, he should aim higher than the 19% he’s struck out during his first three starts. If he keeps pitching to contact at this same rate, he’s going to give up more hits and more runs, and the cost to the team won’t be worth having him save a few extra pitches per start. Pitching to contact sounds like a good idea in practice, and there are times when it makes sense to just fire the ball down the middle and dare the opponent to do something with it, but more often than not, a pitcher’s best option is to just dispatch the opposing hitter himself. Leaving the defense out of the equation might be fascist, but it’s also more effective, and it doesn’t actually run up your pitch count in a meaningful way.

As the summer turned into the stretch run in 2012, the Los Angeles Angels were one of the most dangerous teams in baseball. Albert Pujols had shaken off his early-season troubles, Mike Trout had replaced Vernon Wells to establish himself as a legitimate superstar, and midseason acquisition Zack Greinke had joined Dan Haren, Jered Weaver and C.J. Wilson to form one of the more intimidating rotation quartets in baseball. From the time the Boston Red Sox came to town Aug. 28 through the end of the season, the Angels won 22 of their final 33 games, the second-highest winning percentage in the big leagues.

Never one to sit still, owner Arte Moreno opened his wallet over the winter to once again add the best hitter available on the market, enriching outfielder Josh Hamilton by $133 million. Hamilton joined an offense that already had the third-highest team weighted on-base average in baseball last year without him. Considering the two teams ahead of the Angels on that list, the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers, each suffered serious departures this winter, the Angels could have entered the season rightfully expecting one of the most potent offenses in baseball.

But despite the embarrassment of riches both on offense and in the checkbook, 2013 couldn’t have started off worse for the club in almost every way. The Angels might be rich, and they might be talented, but no amount of payroll hides the fact that this team is facing some serious trouble.

Lethargic start

After getting swept at home by the Oakland Athletics, the Angels head into their weekend series with the Houston Astros with the worst record in the AL West (2-7). Yes, worse than the Astros.

Hamilton spent most of his first week embroiled in off-field controversy surrounding his return to Texas; on the field, coming off the highest seasonal swinging-strike percentage since the stat was first tracked in 2002, he struck out in 10 of his first 20 plate appearances and still had just four hits through Tuesday. Pujols has at least shown power with two home runs, but he has admitted to being somewhat limited by ongoing issues with plantar fasciitis.

It gets worse on the mound. Weaver is now out for at least a month with a fractured left elbow, and there were serious concerns about his performance even before that. Wilson, the club’s other big-ticket addition along with Pujols prior to 2012, went from a .200/.297/.275 (BA/OBP/SLG) line against in the first half of his debut season as an Angel to .275/.351/.456 in the second half before having offseason elbow surgery. Thus far, he has done little to calm the team’s fears, allowing 15 baserunners in 11 innings. Behind them, Greinke, Haren and Ervin Santana have moved on, leaving the new-look rotation a patchwork affair.

Now, if you’re thinking the second week of April is far too soon to write off a team, you’re absolutely right. Hamilton long has been known to be a streaky hitter who will get his numbers in bunches, and opposing pitchers will tremble all season at a quartet of Hamilton, Pujols, Trout and Mark Trumbo. No matter what else happens, the offense alone ought to keep the Angels competitive.

Mound woes

The pitching, however, is problematic, and what was a tenuous situation even before Weaver was injured has gone downhill quickly. No Angels starter pitched more than six innings in the team’s first seven games, and now they have to get by with Garrett Richards rather than Weaver, who is arguably one of the most irreplaceable starters in the game simply because of the fact that the rest of the rotation is hardly what it once was.

In place of Haren, who had a 3.58 ERA in 13 second-half starts, there’s former Mariner Jason Vargas, who has a career 3.38 ERA in Safeco Field and a 5.12 mark everywhere else. He gave up five runs in 5 2/3 innings against the A’s in Thursday’s loss.

Rather than Greinke, there’s Tommy Hanson, undeniably talented but with an extensive recent history of arm trouble. Losing the declining Santana is less of a concern, but Joe Blanton in his spot is hardly anyone’s idea of a difference-maker.

It’s of course the issues with Weaver that are the most troubling, because it’s actually his right arm that might be more concerning than his fractured left one. Weaver’s fastball velocity has been declining since the middle of last season, and it bottomed out at 85 mph in his last start before he got hurt. It’s not unrelated that his first-half ERA of 2.97 last year increased to a lousy 4.56 in the second half; in 11 innings so far in 2013, Weaver had walked and struck out an even six apiece, neither of which should provide Angels fans with much confidence.

Unfortunately for general manager Jerry Dipoto, the options available to him to improve his roster are limited. In years past, the Angels had no problem going after the big arm they needed during the season, adding Haren in 2010 and Greinke in 2012. But after years of moves like that — those two trades alone cost them quality prospects Patrick Corbin, Jean Segura and Tyler Skaggs — and losing draft picks for signing high-profile free agents, the farm system is barren, ranking dead last in Keith Law’s organizational rankings. Only one of Law’s top seven Angels prospects is a pitcher, and Nick Maronde might need more seasoning after spending much of last season in the high Class A California League.

There’s plenty of time left in the season, and a team with this offensive core won’t go quietly. But in a division with contending teams in Oakland and Texas, along with the improving Seattle Mariners, this club should know the danger of a slow start more than most — last year’s 6-14 start put the Angels in a hole they never could recover from, no matter how well they played at the end.

That’s a problem given that both the Athletics and Rangers have won six of their first eight, and the Angels can’t count on a new Trout arriving to save the day this season. For an expensive team with high expectations, the Angels have put themselves in a spot that might be difficult to come back from.

With the Houston Astros move to the American League West, the American League and National League both have 15 teams again. In one sense, this makes things more equitable, as now each team has to overcome four division rivals to guarantee themselves a spot in the playoffs. Under the old system, NL Central clubs had to beat out five other contenders, while AL West clubs only had to best three of their opponents. The more teams you have fighting for the same playoff spot, the less likely each one is to come away the victor, so shipping an NL Central team to the AL West could be seen as a move to make things more fair.

However, there’s an unintended consequence to having 15 teams in both leagues; mandatory interleague match-ups nearly every day. Under the old 14/16 arrangement, MLB would confine interleague match-ups to several distinct periods, where nearly every game was an interleague match-up for a week or two. Now, each team has to deal with randomly dispersed interleague match-ups, and this change puts several NL teams at a real disadvantage.

With random interleague match-ups, NL teams no longer have the luxury of adjusting their rosters to prepare for road trips to AL cities. Previously, an NL club could stash a decent hitting first baseman in Triple-A, call him up for the week or two of the season where a DH was going to be necessary, and then go back to having their regular DH-less roster for the games against their NL opponents. This format puts three game trips to AL parks in the middle of otherwise normal parts of the schedule, leaving the senior circuit teams to wage interleague warfare with their NL rosters.

There are a few National League clubs who will do just fine. The St. Louis Cardinals, for instance, have a roster that is perfectly adaptable to American League baseball. With power hitting Matt Adams (a career 114 wRC+ in his limited major league time) sitting on the bench behind starting first baseman Allan Craig, they have a classic DH already on their roster. Or, if they wanted, they could simply shift Matt Carpenter — who is transitioning to second base simply because the Cardinals have too many good hitters and he needs somewhere to play — to the DH spot, upgrading the team’s infield defense without taking one of their regular bats out of the line-up. In fact, the Cardinals may be a better team in AL parks than they are in NL parks, simply because of the extra flexibility that having a DH would give them.

Likewise, the Washington Nationals will be just fine when they they swap out their pitcher for another bat, as they have 26-year-old Tyler Moore and his .256/.320/.500 career line to insert into the batting order. 19 of Moore’s 41 hits went for extra base hits in his rookie season last year, so he’ll provide another source of power when the Nationals head for American League cities. As if the Nationals didn’t already have enough offense already.

However, there are other NL clubs who don’t have ready made Designated Hitters, and are going to be at a real disadvantage when they have to make a decision on how to use their bench to replace the pitcher in AL parks. The Atlanta Braves, for instance, have two games in Toronto at the end of the month, and if Brian McCann’s shoulder isn’t ready for him to come off the DL by that point, they’re going to have to make some interesting decisions.

Their bench currently consists of a catcher (Gerald Laird), two utility infielders (Blake DeWitt and Ramiro Pena), and a pair of reserve outfielders (Reed Johnson and Jordan Schafer) who would have a hard time scaring a child into handing over their candy, much less intimidating a big league pitcher. The guys on the Braves roster who fit the DH profile are currently needed to play the field, and so Atlanta’s sole option may be to use those games as a day of rest for their defensively challenged starters, while Toronto gets to roll Edwin Encarnacion out there in the middle of their line-up.

The DH issue has long given American League teams an advantage in head to head match-ups, which is one of the reasons AL clubs have won 52.4% of all the interleague games played since 1997. Now, though, the everyday interleague game means that NL teams will have even less of a chance to adjust for their excursions to the lands where pitchers don’t hit. The pain won’t be felt evenly, and NL clubs who happen to be carrying an extra bat to begin with will have a more significant leg up during those games than their NL foes. The difference might not seem all that meaningful, but when division races are decided by a single game, every little margin matters. If the Cardinals or Nationals end up squeezing out a division title on the last day, it might just be due to the fact that they have a roster built for a fair fight in American League ballparks.

Of the approximately 150 pitchers to begin this season in the starting rotation of a big league team — we say “approximately” because some teams have taken advantage of early off-days to avoid using a fifth starter — 45 are left-handed. That’s just below 30 percent of expected starts going to southpaws, which aligns nicely with the actual percentage of plate appearances that came against all lefty pitching last season (29.8 percent).

That’s a sizable amount of plate appearances to account for, and so clubs must construct their rosters with the ensuing platoon splits in mind. But not all lefty starting pitching is created equally, and here we’re talking about much more than just the obvious differences between Clayton Kershaw and Jeff Francis. Whether by design or by circumstance, left-handed starting pitching is no way dispersed equally throughout the big leagues — some teams have to deal with up to four times as many southpaw starters in their divisions than others.

By mapping the lefty starters in each division against offensive tendencies, we can identify contenders who are most hurt and helped by the uneven distribution of southpaws.

Hurt: New York Yankees

On Opening Day in the Bronx, the Yankees faced lefty starter Jon Lester and his Boston Red Sox. As one might expect, Yankee manager Joe Girardi attempted to respond by loading his lineup with as many right-handed bats as he could against the Boston southpaw.

Last year, when the club had the fourth-best wRC+ in baseball against lefty pitching, that lineup would have included Derek Jeter, Russell Martin, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and Nick Swisher.

But this season, limited by various injuries and a tight offseason budget, the best Girardi was able to come up with was a group that included bench players and castoffs like Ben Francisco, Jayson Nix, Eduardo Nunez, and Vernon Wells. The quartet combined for just two walks in 12 plate appearances; the Yankees ended up falling to their rivals by a score of 8-2.

It’s fair to note that the litany of problems facing the Yankees this season stand to give them trouble against pitchers of all shapes and sizes, but the rag-tag lineup underscored a larger concern — the club looks to have an extremely serious problem hitting southpaws in 2013. Of the 10 Yankees on the current active roster who had at least 50 plate appearances against left-handed pitching in 2012, only Travis Hafner, Nunez and Kevin Youkilis managed even a league-average wRC+ against southpaws. Hafner is unlikely to see much time against lefties, so that leaves New York with a large portion of their lineup that will struggle to hit southpaws — yes, even Robinson Cano, who had only a 78 wRC+ against his fellow lefties.

That’s a big problem in a division where every team except Baltimore has at least two lefty starters, including defending Cy Young Award winner David Price and up-and-coming star Matt Moore in Tampa Bay. While the Red Sox added lefty-killers Mike Napoli and Shane Victorino this winter and the Toronto Blue Jays can still rely on Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion, the Yankees can best hope to tread water while hoping their injured right-handed stars return sooner than later.

Hurt: Los Angeles Dodgers

If you don’t like lefty pitching, then the NL West is a tough place to be. Each team here starts the season with two lefties in its rotation, which means that every club has to prepare to see eight lefty starters within the division — tied with the Baltimore Orioles, Miami Marlins, and New York Mets for the most in baseball.

The Dodgers may luck out in that they don’t have to face their own ace lefty (Clayton Kershaw), but it’s a bigger problem for them than their rivals because the club has serious problems against lefties. They finished tied for 24th in wRC+ against southpaws in 2012, and the 2013 roster isn’t exactly built to improve upon that. The most notable addition to the lineup this year is Carl Crawford, who brings just an 83 wRC+ against lefties over his career, and the inability — or unwillingness — to find a suitable platoon partner for Andre Ethier (76 wRC+) has plagued the team for years.

While a full season of Adrian Gonzalez (career 115 wRC+ against lefties) rather than James Loney (77 wRC+) at first base will ameliorate that somewhat, the loss of Hanley Ramirez (135 wRC+) to injury for most of the next two months is going to further inhibit the club against southpaws. More than anything, the team needs Matt Kemp to prove he’s fully recovered from offseason shoulder surgery to destroy lefty pitching as he did in 2011.

He’s been unable to do that in the early going, and if not, the team could be in for more than a few games like the one they suffered through on Tuesday, when Madison Bumgarner dominated them over eight shutout innings.

Helped: Cincinnati Reds

There are only five lefty starters in the NL Central, and the Reds and Milwaukee Brewers are both actually going with all-righty groups after Aroldis Chapman and Chris Narveson ended up in the bullpen. What’s more, since three of those five are Jeff Locke, Jonathan Sanchez, and Travis Wood, it’s not exactly as though the lack of quantity is being made up for with high quality.

The lack of tough southpaw starters in the division benefits the Reds, who traded lefty-killer Drew Stubbs over the winter and just lost Ryan Ludwick (coming off a very good 149 wRC+ against lefties last season) for the next three months after dislocating his shoulder. That doesn’t mean they’ll be totally punchless against the lefties they do see, because Joey Votto hits absolutely everyone and Todd Frazier showed success against southpaws last year, but this is now a team that’s well-equipped to handle righty pitching.

That’s a tendency which is shown in the splits, because Votto (192 wRC+ in 2012 against righties, as opposed to 145 wRC+ against lefties), Jay Bruce (128/99), Shin-Soo Choo (160/78), Jack Hannahan (100/78) and Brandon Phillips (102/96) all hit better against righty pitching than lefties last season. That’s the heart of the Cincinnati order, and Chris Heisey, expected to fill the Ludwick void, has had better success over his career against righty pitching as well.

This is a good Reds team that should be able to hit no matter who is on the mound, but this can give them a slight edge in a division they were already favored by many to win.

Helped: Kansas City Royals

The only place with fewer lefty starters than the NL Central is the AL Central, which started the year with only two southpaw starters once Scott Kazmir landed on the disabled list. While Chris Sale is a quality pitcher, Jose Quintana still has much to prove.

That’s good news for the Royals, who beat out only the Cleveland Indians and non-contenders Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, and Marlins in wRC+ against lefties in 2012. Ned Yost’s club had 14 different hitters gather at least 50 plate appearances against southpaw pitching last season, and a mere three — Billy Butler, Lorenzo Cain, and Salvador Perez — managed to be league-average.

That leaves an awfully large amount of plate appearances against southpaws that generally ended poorly, whether it was the 201 times up for Eric Hosmer (a horrendous 63 wRC+), 179 to Jeff Francoeur (79), and even 254 to Alex Gordon (84). There’s some hope here because Perez is now healthy and expected to see more playing time, and Francoeur traditionally has been better against lefties, but the Royals made few changes on the offensive side of the ball, importing only Elliot Johnson and his 67 wRC+ against lefties in 101 plate appearances.

For a team desperately trying to break a losing skid that’s measured in decades, every little advantage can help, and this works in Kansas City’s favor.

In 2012, youth was served. Mike Trout was the game’s best performer at age 20, while Bryce Harper had perhaps the best age-19 season in baseball history. Buster Posey won his first MVP at 25, while David Price became a Cy Young winner at 26. The A’s and Orioles both rode very young rosters into surprising playoff berths. It was a good year for the young.

There’s still some great young talent in baseball, and as Harper showed on Opening Day, he’s just getting started. However, this year, there are some interesting players to pay attention to on the other end of the spectrum. If 2012 was the year of the youngster, 2013 might just be the year of the reclamation project.

Scott Kazmir is the most high profile comeback story of the spring, as the Indians gave him a non-roster invite to camp after he showed some improved velocity during winter ball, and he ended up winning a spot in their rotation. Kazmir hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2011, and he only faced 14 batters — retiring just five of them — that year. In 2010, Kazmir’s last full year in the big leagues, he posted a -1.1 WAR, making him one of the worst pitchers in baseball that season.

Formerly a power pitcher, Kazmir was last seen throwing 87 MPH fastballs to the few batters he got to face in 2011, and his early decline was easily traced to his drop in velocity. Thanks to the fact that PITCHF/x cameras are installed in a few Cactus League ballparks, we can note that Kazmir’s fastball averaged 92 MPH this spring, and his slider was coming in around 81, the kind of velocity he hasn’t shown on his breaking ball since 2007. That year, Kazmir struck out 27% of the batters he faced and posted a +5 WAR season.

Getting the snap back on his slider is perhaps even more important than his fastball velocity, though the increase in both suggest that Kazmir’s arm may be healthier now than it has been in years. While spring training numbers aren’t usually worth the pixels they take to display, Kazmir’s 13/1 K/BB ratio in Cactus League action is also quite encouraging. It’s one thing to just throw hard again, but Broken Kazmir also couldn’t throw strikes with any regularity. The combination of velocity and missing bats while pitching within the strike zone suggests that there might actually be something to Kazmir’s return story.

Of course, the abdominal injury he suffered on Monday might slow his return, and is even threatening to land him back on the Disabled List, a reminder that durability is still a major question mark. For Kazmir, though, he has to at least be encouraged that it isn’t his arm that’s hurting this time, and a ribcage injury isn’t likely to shelve him for the entire season. If Kazmir is able to stay off the DL and make his return to the big leagues as scheduled on Saturday, don’t be too shocked if he looks more like he did in Tampa Bay than in Anaheim. Kazmir’s command has never been good enough to let him get by without his velocity, but now that he seemingly has it back, he could be a favorite for Comeback Player of the Year.

He won’t be the only one in the running, though. The AL features a pair of former hitting stars trying to get back to their prior glory, and both ended up as veteran reserves on young teams – Miguel Tejada in Kansas City and Jason Bay in Seattle. While Bay probably shouldn’t have beaten out Casper Wells for the final outfield job with the Mariners, there are some reasons to think that he might have something left to offer in a part-time role.

Even as his career fell apart with the Mets, Bay has still shown some effectiveness against left-handed pitching. In 338 plate appearances against southpaws since 2010, he’s hit .246/.355/.401. That might not look like an amazing performance, but it was good for a 112 wRC+, meaning that his overall offensive line against lefties was 12 percent better than the league average. Since he’s almost certainly going to get most of his starts when a southpaw is on the mound, Bay’s numbers could be in for a legitimate improvement simply due to the way he’s likely to be used. Now, given his lack of defensive value, Bay’s not going to be a great player even as a platoon bat against southpaws, and the younger guy he replaced also whacked lefties pretty well, but just from a career rejuvenation standpoint, Bay has a decent shot at posting better numbers than he has in years, simply because the Mariners should have the ability to keep him away from right-handed pitching.

The story is somewhat the same with Tejada in Kansas City, though we don’t have any 2012 Major League data for him. However, Tejada did get 288 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers in 2010/2011, and he hit .246/.323/.449 against southpaws in those opportunities, good for a 108 wRC+. With left-handed hitting starters ahead of him on the depth chart at both second and third base, the Royals should be able to spell their starters against some LHPs and give Tejada a majority of his at-bats against opposite handed pitchers. While his bat might not be able to catch up to tough right-handers anymore, giving him a steady diet of lefties might just give him the career renaissance he’s looking for.

Over in the National League, the big reclamation project is Marlon Byrd, but unlike Bay and Tejada, he’s not getting protected in a reserve role. The Mets outfield experiment led them to give Byrd a starting job after a decent spring, so the 35-year-old is going to have to hit all comers to get his career back on track. With his aggressive approach at the plate, Byrd’s offensive value essentially has to come through hitting for power, which he didn’t do at all last year — only 3 of his 30 hits went for extra bases — before he was released by the Cubs.

However, while he was miserable for Chicago last year, it was barely more than a month’s worthy of playing time, and Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections expect his Isolated Slugging, basically in line with what he did back in 2011 when he was a solid role player for Chicago. If he finds his doubles power again, Byrd’s contact skills and athleticism should allow him to be a useful player for the Mets, and give him a better career sendoff than the ignominious ending he had last season.

Commissioner Bud Selig is fond of saying that under his watch, revenue sharing and the addition of two wild cards have allowed more teams than ever to begin the season with at least some hope of reaching the postseason. Perhaps that’s true, but realistically it doesn’t apply to everyone. In five of the six divisions, there’s at least one team with almost no chance for glory in 2013.

Even if there’s little likelihood of success between the lines, these teams can — must, really — identify ways to make 2013 a successful season, rather than just marking time as endless games go by. These teams can learn more about what they have, what they don’t and what they need to do to get back into contention.

For these clubs, success this season will be defined in ways other than victories.

Miami Marlins

Attempt to win back some sort of public goodwill by proving that the latest fire sale brought back the core of the next good Marlins team.

The Marlins were rightfully flogged after the deals that shipped out Emilio Bonifacio, Mark Buehrle, Josh Johnson, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes and Anibal Sanchez, raising the white flag after just a single season in their new publicly-funded park. That series of moves has shrunk the Opening Day payroll from just more than $100 million in 2012 to about a third of that this season, leaving them with only Giancarlo Stanton and what’s likely to be a whole lot of empty seats.

Miami fans might feel betrayed by the moves, but the Marlins can help redeem themselves this season by showing that the deals made sense from a baseball perspective, not just a financial one. Catcher Rob Brantly (.290/.372/.460 in 113 plate appearances after coming from Detroit), pitchers Henderson Alvarez and Nathan Eovaldi (4.13 FIP in 22 starts between Los Angeles and Miami) and slick-fielding rookie shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria all arrived in the deals and will start the season with the Marlins. They’ll soon be joined by fellow trade acquisitions in outfielder Jake Marisnick and pitchers Justin Nicolino and Jacob Turner, plus two top prospects the team already had — pitcher Jose Fernandez and outfielder Christian Yelich.

It won’t be easy for the Marlins to swing the tide of public opinion back their way, but it’s important to remember this is a team that lost 93 games last season and 90 in 2011. For this to be a successful season in Miami, the Marlins can win a similar amount of games for a fraction of the cost and with a much brighter future.

Colorado Rockies

Sort out their organizational direction.

It’s one thing to say that the Rockies should just fix their lousy pitching staff, because that’s been an ongoing concern almost since the day they were born in 1993. This edition of the club has a larger concern to deal with — they’ve increasingly become one of the more oddly-run organizations in baseball.

In a five-month span last season, the Rockies ran through one of the more confounding stretches we’ve seen in years. In June, they announced plans to go to a four-man rotation and limit starters to 75 pitches per outing. While that represented admirable outside-the-box thinking, the timing of the midseason implementation was awkward, and players never seemed to buy into it. In August, the club raised the eyebrows of many by promoting assistant general manager Bill Geivett to perform the duties of a general manager without actually stripping incumbent Dan O’Dowd of the title. Geivett took that one step further, locating his desk within the clubhouse — a move nearly unheard of in the sport.

By September, they announced the four-man rotation idea would be scrapped for 2013. That was followed by a managerial shakeup in October, as Jim Tracy decided he’d had enough and quit. After a search that included an active player, Jason Giambi, they settled upon former shortstop Walt Weiss, who was previously coaching high school baseball.

The Rockies have plenty of problems on the field and are expected to finish last in 2013. The best thing they can do to change that for the future is to figure out their organizational philosophy and return the focus to building a winning team.

Seattle Mariners

Figure out if they already have the offensive core of the future, or if they need to find one.

Seattle lost 87 games last season and spent the winter applying patches to the offense, importing short-term fixes like Kendrys Morales and Michael Morse. There’s plenty of pitching talent on the way, with pitchers Danny Hultzen, James Paxton and Taijuan Walker all likely to be ready within the year to join the newly-extended Felix Hernandez, but the Mariners need to understand if they have the pieces to upgrade that league-worst offense for years to come.

The team thought it might have done that already with youngsters second baseman Dustin Ackley, catcher Jesus Montero and first baseman Justin Smoak, but all three flopped last season, with Montero’s lowly .298 OBP representing the trio’s best mark.

There’s still hope here, because youth is on their side — none are older than 26 — and Smoak put up a red-hot September after switching to a lighter bat. This is probably his last chance to prove himself with Seattle, however, and the Mariners need to find out if Ackley and Montero are for real, as well.

New York Mets

Get the growing pains of their “big three” prospects out of the way in a low-expectation year.

After four straight losing seasons, the Mets head into 2013 with more problems than ever. R.A. Dickey is gone, Johan Santana might be finished and the team arguably doesn’t have a single big league quality outfielder. That’s going to make for a tough season against the powerhouses of the NL East, but Mets fans have a lot to look forward to thanks to a trio of ready-now young talent.

Matt Harvey made his debut last season and sparkled in 10 late-season starts, striking out 70 in 59 1/3; innings. He’ll be joined later in the season by fellow starter Zack Wheeler, one year younger but even more highly-regarded, and also by catcher Travis d’Arnaud, the main prize of the Dickey deal. All three should see considerable time in the big leagues this season. While that won’t be enough to allow the Mets to contend this year, there’s nothing better they can do than to get the trio fully acclimated to New York while the pressure is at its lowest.

Put another way: The Mets head into this season with Jeremy Hefner in the rotation and John Buck behind the plate. If the team does nothing else but replace them by beginning the careers of the core of the next good New York club, it’ll be a worthwhile endeavor.

San Diego Padres

Settle Chase Headley’s future, one way or another.

Headley broke out in a huge way in 2012, finishing fifth in the National League Most Valuable Player ballot thanks to 31 home runs and 115 RBIs, along with solid defense. He’s set to earn $8.5 million this season and has one remaining season of arbitration beyond that before hitting free agency after 2014.

Unsurprisingly, that combination has had trade rumors swirling around Headley since last summer, especially considering how thin third base is and that large market teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees both need help at the position. The longer the Padres hold on to him, the lower his trade value becomes — especially if his 2012 was a mirage, considering he hit just four homers the season before — so it’s important to their long-term success that they end the questions and sign him or move him.

If there’s any kind of silver lining to the broken thumb that will sideline Headley for the first few weeks of the season, it’s that the Padres will get plenty of time to look at 24-year-old prospect Jedd Gyorko. Gyorko is a career .319/.385/.529 hitter in the minors with 55 homers over the past two seasons, but he’s been blocked at third base by Headley. With Headley and backup Logan Forsythe both injured, Gyorko is expected to see time both at second base and third base in San Diego this year; his performance will go a long way towards informing the Padres if Headley is expendable or not.

Minnesota Twins

Fully commit to a ground-up rebuild.

The Twins have lost 195 games over the past two seasons, in large part because no team in baseball had a worse FIP than Minnesota did in 2012 — no, not even the Rockies. Their last-place outlook doesn’t seem likely to change in 2013, and giving $14 million to Kevin Correia and Mike Pelfrey seemed like a large sum of money for an incremental improvement when similar placeholder types could have been found for a fraction of that.

The process of turning this team over began when outfielders Ben Revere and Denard Span were traded for pitching prospects Trevor May and Alex Meyer, along with back-end starter Vance Worley. It’s a good start, but the team needs to go further.

Outfielder Josh Willingham is coming off a career year (35 homers and an .890 OPS) and has a reasonable two years left on his contract; he’ll be more valuable as a trade chip than he will be on the field for a losing team. The same goes for longtime Twin Justin Morneau, who is headed into the last year of his contract and showed that he could stay healthy and reasonably productive in 2012. If they can get some value out of multi-positional types like Jamey Carroll and Ryan Doumit as well, all the better; none of these players will be around the next time the Twins see October.

The Twins cost themselves in 2011 by failing to trade Michael Cuddyer in his free-agent walk year, letting him move on to Colorado as a free agent for nothing. If the team plans to truly turn around what’s become one of the worst teams in the league, they can’t repeat that mistake.

Houston Astros

Find rock bottom this year.

You just can’t overstate how bad it’s going to be for the Astros in 2013. Take a team that lost 213 games over the plast two seasons, remove the only offensive player who contributed more than two wins above replacement (Jed Lowrie, at 2.6), switch them to one of the toughest divisions in baseball and what you have is a recipe for outright disaster.

GM Jeff Luhnow already traded off all of his respectable veterans last season, other than perhaps starter Bud Norris, so fans don’t even have that to look forward to.

What the team can do instead is to make sure that this season is as bad as it gets, and that next season starts the long climb back to respectability. That doesn’t mean it won’t still be bad — if the team is as awful as everyone expects this season, it could improve by 10 games in 2014 and still lose more than 100 — but now that the teardown is finished, the front office can see what’s left.

That means finding out if Brett Wallace is ever going to hit, or if Justin Maxwell can be a usable outfielder, and maybe even getting top prospect Jonathan Singleton up after his suspension is over. It’ll be ugly in Houston no matter what, but fans and players alike need to begin to see that there’s light at the end of this tunnel.

Every year, certain players surprise in a good way, and we have already seen picks to click from Jonah Keri and breakout picks from Keith Law. But not everyone can be a pleasant surprise. Young players who we expect to show progress will plateau or take steps back, and veterans who we expect to maintain a certain level of performance will backslide. Let’s take a look at a few players that I am not optimistic on this year.

Jered Weaver, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: Back-to-back three-win seasons established Weaver as one of the best pitchers in the game, but there was an underlying river that threatened to undermine his progress — his strikeout rate. In 2010, Weaver struck out a career-best 25.8% batters, but his swinging-strike rate that season has proven to be an outlier. As his strikeout rate has declined — his 19.2% K% last season was actually below average — so has his velocity. Towards the end of last season, his average velocity was barely above 85 mph. With his 20’s behind him, Weaver is unlikely to see these trends suddenly reverse themselves, and he will become even more reliant on his control and defense. Luckily, both of those are still excellent, so Weaver’s decline may be soft, but his days of being an ace may be behind him. Last season he only registered a 94 FIP-, just six percent better than league average. That’s not the profile of a pitcher who should be the eighth-fastest pitcher in fantasy leagues, as he is at Mock Draft Central.

Hunter Pence, San Francisco Giants: Another player who will say goodbye to his 20’s this season is Pence. The Texas native, who turns 30 on April 13, saw a sharp decline in his performance following his trade to the Giants last season. It might not get any easier this season. Pence has never been a player who relies on his patience, and has instead made his hay as a power-speed player. The speed vanished in 2011, and the power may go the way of the dodo soon as well. Last season, only one National League park depressed home runs from right-handed hitters more than did AT&T Park. It was also the fourth-hardest NL park for right-handed hitters for doubles and triples. This puts Pence’s streak of 20-plus homers in five straight seasons squarely in jeopardy, but it’s more than just that. After starting his career with five consecutive seasons with at least 3.0 WAR, last season Pence fell to just 1.8, and if he doesn’t improve, his days as a full-time starter may be numbered.

Jason Kipnis, Cleveland Indians: When Kipnis homered in four straight games in his introduction to the majors, it seemed like a new star had been foisted upon us. More than a year later, things appear less certain. Yes, Kipnis did sock 14 homers and swipe 31 bases last season, something that no other second baseman could boast. On the other hand, his 3.1 WAR was only the 12^th-best mark at the position, and tied for a middling 69^th out of 143 qualified players. His offense was league average, but after his ’11 debut, more was expected. His projections don’t look any rosier heading into 2013, as neither ZiPS nor Steamer project his wOBA to be a top 10 figure at second base. Steamer ranks him 12^th, and ZiPS ranks him 13^th. He’s not close to breaking away from the pack in either projection system, and both rate him as essentially akin to the Mets’ Daniel Murphy.

This runs contrary to his public perception — on MDC for instance, only Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia and Ian Kinsler are being drafted ahead of Kipnis at the keystone. Part of the problem may be his home ballpark, Progressive Field. In his brief time in the majors, Kipnis has struggled against left-handed pitching, and that is doubly true at home. In his 128 plate appearances at home against lefties, he has hit just .184, and only 3.8% of the flyballs he has hit have landed in the cheap seats, a number that is well below league average. And while 128 PA is a small sample, it has been shown that HR/FB stabilizes around 100 PA, so that number may not take a turn for the better. This season, Kipnis will be 26, so he isn’t <i>that</i> young. He should be entering his prime, but his recent performance and projections offer little hope for growth. As a point of comparison, Pedroia had seasons with wOBA’s of .364, .377 and .359 by the time he reached his age-26 season. Last year in his first full season, Kipnis hit for a not-at-all comparable .315 wOBA. Kipnis simply may not become the star many expect him to be.

Michael Morse, Seattle Mariners: In his one full season in the majors, Morse hit .303/.360/.550 in 575 PA. In his other 1,115 major league PA, he has hit .291/.341/.462 — not bad in and of itself, but certainly the star quality is lacking. Add in some absolutely horrid defense, and you are left with a player that is only superficially a “beast.” Over the past two seasons, 107 players have played at least 1,000 innings in the outfield. Of them, only Lucas Duda has a worse UZR/150 than does Morse. Now, he will move to a bigger outfield in Seattle than he had been playing in in Washington. That’s not a recipe for success. Not only will his fantasy value take a hit — Safeco Field still kills right-handed hitters — but his WAR may be in danger of delving into negative territory.

Carlos Beltran, St. Louis Cardinals: In the past two seasons, Beltran has not missed significant time due to injury. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the automatic number-generating robot for the entirety of the two seasons. His 2011 campaign was a revelation, as was his first-half performance last season. But then his walk rate dropped, his K rate spiked, and his production dropped. Beltran isn’t going to be as bad as his .236/.302/.440 line that he tallied in the second half last season, but the superstar lines of 2011 and early 2012 will probably be out of reach as well. No longer an asset defensively, Beltran is almost completely reliant on his bat to provide value, and his bat isn’t going to justify superstar status. Neither ZiPS nor Steamer projects Beltran to have a top-20 wOBA among outfielders. Both grade him as above-average offensively, similar to players like Jason Kubel and Nick Markakis. What’s more, if Beltran does get hurt, he may find himself Wally Pipp’d by top prospect Oscar Taveras. It can be dangerous to put too much weight on first-half and second-half splits, but when the player in be pessimistic.

To be sure, these four are not the only players about whom I am pessimistic. Like Morse, Jacoby Ellsbury only has only recent banner season, albeit a borderline-MVP banner season. He probably isn’t going to get near that level again though. Dan Haren, Tommy Hanson and Brian McCann are all broken until proven healthy — all three are too risky for my tastes in fantasy baseball this season. From a fantasy perspective, Mike Moustakas is the embodiment of a player whose real-life value far outstrips his fantasy value.

Last August, I wrote a post at FanGraphs that labeled Giants center fielder Angel Pagan as The Most Underrated Player in Baseball. He then went on to fame in October and fortune in free agency, so coming off a World Series title and a $40 million contract, it’s probably time for him to pass the torch. There are a few pretty good players who don’t get enough respect, but given that he just placed 175th in the BBTN 500, I don’t think anyone in the game is currently more underrated than Erick Aybar.

Aybar seems to fly under the radar for many of the same reasons as Pagan. He’s a good hitter relative to his peers at an up the middle position, but he’s not the kind of dynamic offensive player who shows up on Sportscenter a lot. Rather than being excellent at any one thing, he’s solid at a number of things, and excels in areas that people pay little attention to, such as running the bases. And, of course, he’s been overshadowed by more famous teammates for practically his entire career, and given that he’s now on the same team as Mike Trout, that’s not likely to change any time soon.

But just because Aybar isn’t the most famous member of the Angels line-up doesn’t mean that we should continue to overlook his contributions. Over the last four years, Aybar has posted a 99 wRC+ (league average is 100, and league average for shortstops is 86), and as most teams in baseball can attest, it is not easy to find a guy who can hold his own with the bat while also defending the shortstop position. For Aybar, though, what he does at the plate is just the start of his offensive value.

Over the last four years, Aybar has accrued 16 runs of baserunning value, according to the metrics we use on FanGraphs to evaluate base stealing and advancing when a teammate puts the ball in play. That’s good for 18th best in baseball during that stretch, and has added nearly two wins of value to the Angels during that stretch. And using the last four years of data might actually underrate Aybar’s current baserunning skills — in 2009/2010, he was just 36 for 51 in stealing bases, but he’s 50 for 60 over the last two years. As his base stealing has improved, so has his overall value, and he’s been worth +7.6 WAR over the last two seasons alone, putting him 5th overall among shortstops during that stretch.

Still not convinced? Here’s Aybar’s performance — in batting, fielding, and baserunning — over the last two years compared to Derek Jeter:

Jeter’s been a slightly better hitter even after you account for their home parks, but Aybar wipes out the entire offensive advantage just through the difference in baserunning, meaning that they’ve essentially been equals in terms of producing runs over the last two seasons. When it comes to saving them, Aybar is clearly superior, and though he’ll never The Captain, he’s pretty clearly a better shortstop now than the Yankees superstar.

This isn’t intended as a knock against Jeter, who is still a very good player in his own right, but simply serves to show that Aybar’s performance is nothing to sneeze at. He might not be a big time power hitter, but then again, neither is Jeter. Shortstops who make a lot of contact, get a bunch of doubles, and can run when they get on base can produce a lot of value even if they aren’t pulling the ball into the stands on a regular basis.

And yet, Aybar remains underappreciated. He’s never been named to an All-Star team, nor has ever even received a single down ballot MVP vote. Last spring, he signed a four year contract extension that kept him off the free agent market for the grand total of $36 million, giving him the same average annual value in salary that Cody Ross got this winter.

The Angels have just announced that Aybar is going to hit second in the order this year, putting him in between Trout and Pujols, so he might get more attention than he has in previous years, and don’t be too shocked if he takes another step forward offensively with Trout opening up the right side of the infield for him on a regular basis. Of course, any step forward offensively now would just elevate him from good player to a legitimate star, so perhaps we can start giving him credit for being a key part of the Angels success now?

Oh, and if you were wondering, my other two finalists for the title also play in the West – David Murphy of the Rangers and Trevor Cahill of the Diamondbacks. Murphy’s been tagged with the fourth outfielder label but is more than capable of playing everyday on a good Texas team, and with Hamilton gone to Anaheim, he’s going to get his chance to prove it in 2013. Cahill hasn’t been able to repeat his flukey 2.74 ERA from 2010 again, and might be seen as something of a letdown for those who thought that was sustainable, but he’s still been an above average starter and increased both his strikeout rate and ground ball rate last year — it’s not easy to move both of those things up at the same time, suggesting that Cahill might be in line for even more improvement headed into his age-25 season.

But while Murphy and Cahill are good players, they’re still not as good as Aybar. And that’s why, at the end of the day, he’s now the most underrated player in baseball.