The Cleveland Indians got beat real hard Wednesday night in Texas, losing 12-1 to a Ranger club that has its eyes on a division championship.

Normally, a blowout loss like this wouldn’t be interesting enough to make these pages. But this game is unique in its own right.

Towards the end of said game, three notable writers shared an exchange on Twitter: KenTremendous (a.k.a. Michael Schur, of The Office and Parks and Recreation fame), Jonah Keri (late of Baseball Prospectus, among other places), and Steve Buffum (keeper of The B-List Indians Blog, part of ESPN’s own SweetSpot Network).

The conversation in question went as follows:

KenTremendous The Red Sox’ CF, 1B, LF, C, starter, and final reliever were not on the team a month ago.

jonahkeri Yet active payroll’s still huge RT @KenTremendous The Red Sox’ CF, 1B, LF, C, starter, and final reliever were not on the team a month ago.

stevebuffum @jonahkeri Well, no other team has had injuries. Cleveland’s 3B and SP were in their roles opening day (no one else was).

Schur’s point is well taken: with Kevin Youkilis‘ ankle injury during Boston’s 3-2 loss at Tampa, the Red Sox have definitely suffered their share of roster turnover — and have remained competitive in the AL East while doing so. That’s pretty incredible.

Keri’s is, too: one could make the claim — fairly so — that, with their resources, the Red Sox should be able to deal with injuries as they come.

But Buffum really holds the trump card in this discussion, as the Cleveland Indians he’s watching now are almost an entirely different team than the one that greeted him back in the beginning of April.

By way of illustration, here’s that Opening Day lineup:

Asdrubal Cabrera, 2B
Grady Sizemore, CF
Shin-Soo Choo, RF
Travis Hafner, DH
Jhonny Peralta, 3B
Matt LaPorta, 1B
Mark Grudzielanek, 2B
Lou Marson, C
Michael Brantley, LF

Now here’s Cleveland’s lineup for July 6 at Texas:

Michael Brantley, CF
Jayson Nix, 2B
Carlos Santana, C
Austin Kearns, RF
Jhonny Peralta, 3B
Shelley Duncan, DH
Andy Marte, 1B
Trevor Crowe, LF
Jason Donald, SS

It should be noted that there’s a little bit of cheating here: Hafner was sitting against Ranger lefty C.J. Wilson in the latter game, and LaPorta got whacked in the head the other night, otherwise he’d be playing, too.

The other changes, though: they’re legit. Cabrera, Sizemore, and Choo are all out with injuries. Grudzielanek was released by the club a month ago. Lou Marson was optioned to Triple-A around the same time. The only holdovers from the original lineup are Peralta and Brantley — which isn’t even to mention that Brantley has spent most of the season in Triple-A!

Question: Why is any of this important?
Anwswer: Because we can learn about a team, and its intents, by looking at how it solves its injuries problems.

Of particular interest is to look at the relative ages of the pre-injury and post-injury lineups. If we assume that, generally speaking, younger players have the chance to improve while older players have reached their developmental ceilings, then we can guess at a team’s motivations for employing one or the other.

The Red Sox have been one of the oldest teams in the league this year, with an average batter age (weighted by at-bats, per Baseball Reference) of 31.4. Last night’s lineup at Tampa — even with several players who weren’t present at the beginning of year — wasn’t actually much lower than that: just 31.1 years old. Players like Kevin Cash (32) and Bill Hall (30), though not terribly exciting, are known quantities, and they’re helpful to a team trying to hold its ground during a bad run of injuries.

The Indians have taken a different approach. Their average batter age this season is 28.3 years old. Against Texas on July 6, however, that number dipped to 26.6 among the starting lineup — almost a full two years younger. While the Indians gave plenty of playing time to older players like the 40-year-old Grudzielanek and 34-year-old Russell Branyan earlier this season, the front office has definitely sought to get younger this past month, in an attempt to give extended trials to younger players. The 26-year-old Trevor Crowe, 25-year-old Jason Donald, and 24-year-old Carlos Santana have all benefited from this tack.

Though it’s by no means infallible, looking at the starting age of a starting lineup relative to the team’s average batting age for a season, can give clues as to the direction a team has opted to take its season. For Boston, post-season baseball is a priority; for Cleveland, it’s developing players for the future.

After losing again last night, this time to the Kansas City Royals in a game in which Felix Hernandez took the mound, the Mariners now stand at 34-48. The biggest culprit in their disappointing season is clearly their offense, which is last in the AL in nearly everything related to producing runs. The Mariners’ biggest problem on offense is a total lack of power; they are tied with Oakland for fewest home runs of any American League team, but the A’s have 24 more doubles and nine more triples.

Many people see Seattle’s lack of power and its overall failure as a cause and effect, suggesting that teams that don’t hit the ball out of the park are structurally flawed and can’t win. Rather than just taking this at face value, though, I thought we should look at whether other teams have won without having any real thump in their lineups, compensating by scoring runs in other ways. As it turns out, a number of punchless squads have ended up playing meaningful games in October.

The most recent example of a playoff team that won this way was the 1996 Dodgers. They won 90 games and the NL wild card despite finishing last in the league in slugging percentage with a .384 mark. They managed to score 703 runs on the back of Mike Piazza and a poor supporting cast, though two of the other guys in the lineup, Raul Mondesi (24 homers) and Eric Karros (34 homers), could at least hit the ball over the wall.

If we’re looking for a playoff club that really lacked power, we have to turn the clock back to 1987, when the St. Louis Cardinals won more games (95) than they hit home runs (94). With Vince Coleman, Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee, it was a team built around speed and defense, but the Cards were able to finish second in the NL in runs scored because they got on base (No. 1 in OBP) and ran like the wind (No. 1 in steals). They did have one big-time power hitter, Jack Clark, who accounted for 37 percent of the team’s home run total by himself, but the rest of the lineup was a bunch of slap hitters who were on the team for their defense.

That squad is a good comparison for Seattle, because the M’s were hoping to ride the speed-and-defense model to a division crown. However, their .309 team OBP ranks 13th in the AL. And though they are third in the AL with 75 swipes (and an 80 percent success rate), you can’t steal first base. And unlike the ’87 Cards, they don’t have even one masher. Franklin Gutierrez leads the squad with just eight homers, and Ichiro Suzuki has the highest slugging percentage (.415) of any of their everyday players. Seattle’s team slugging percentage of .349 is the lowest in the AL.

If we’re searching for a team that got to the playoffs without any real big-time power threat, though, we have to go back to the 1973 Mets. They slugged a ridiculous .338 as a team, which was bad even by the lower offensive standards of the time. Their leading home run guy, John Milner, hit 24 bombs but also hit just .239. Rusty Staub, the team’s best hitter, launched only 15 jacks, but he racked up a lot of doubles and walks.

Still, despite being power-starved, that Mets team was able to win the NL East and take the A’s to seven games in the World Series, showing that it is possible to contend without a big-time power bat in the middle of the lineup. However, considering that the Mets won just 83 games in the regular season, they don’t exactly inspire confidence that this plan will always work.

While some teams have been able to get away with a lack of power, it’s rare. The Mariners needed more from Milton Bradley and Jose Lopez, who were being counted on to produce the offensive punch in the middle of the lineup. When they both decided to have the worst years of their careers, the Mariners’ chances for contention went out the window.

It’s no secret which guys are having the best seasons so far in 2010 — Robinson Cano, Ubaldo Jimenez and Justin Morneau are among those who are off to the races and will certainly be at the All-Star Game in two weeks. But that’s the thing about the Midsummer Classic — the choices are mostly based on who has had the best first half. What if we went back a full year? Here are the best players over the last calendar year, dating back to July 1, 2009? Think of them as the full-year All-Stars.

To choose this team, I took the players at each position with the highest weighted on-base percentage (wOBA) who had enough plate appearances (3.3 per team game) to qualify for a batting title. For pitchers, I used FIP.

Catcher: Joe Mauer, Twins — .330/.410/.491, .390 wOBA
No big surprise here, as Mauer’s the best-hitting catcher in the game. However, it should be noted that Arizona’s Miguel Montero has slightly better rate statistics, but doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify. He’s one to keep an eye on now that he’s healthy again.

First base: Albert Pujols, Cardinals — .319/.429/.585, .424 wOBA
Pujols takes the top spot, but you should feel bad for Miguel Cabrera, Joey Votto and Kevin Youkilis — they are the three of the best hitters in baseball over the last 365 days, but because they play the same position as Prince Albert, they can’t crack the top spot.

Second base: Robinson Cano, Yankees — 347/.386/.567, .407 wOBA
Cano’s burst to begin this season has carried his numbers to the top, surpassing both Dustin Pedroia and Chase Utley. Not a bad trio of offensive middle infielders.

Shortstop: Troy Tulowitzki, Rockies — .318/.389/.564, .412 wOBA
Move over, Hanley; the Rockies star has taken over as the best-hitting shortstop in the game over the past year. Tulowitzki’s recent wrist injury is going to be a huge problem for Colorado. He is much more than just a slick fielder.

Third base: Alex Rodriguez, New York – .297/.381/.522, .392 wOBA
Rumors of A-Rod’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, as the Yankees third baseman has outhit all other third basemen over the last year. He might not be as good as he was a few years ago, but the guy can still rake.

Left field: Matt Holliday, Cardinals — .326/.395/.547, .404 wOBA
Yeah, I think St. Louis is pleased with how that trade with Oakland has worked out. Holliday’s slow start with the A’s last year is nothing more than a blip on the radar at this point, as he’s gone right back to being the best-hitting left fielder in the game.

Center field: Carlos Gonzalez, Rockies — .299/.346/.523, .375 wOBA
Kudos if you guessed this one correctly. He gets overshadowed by some of his teammates, but the slugging center fielder has put up huge numbers for the Rockies over the last year and is one of the reasons they felt comfortable giving Dexter Fowler more time in Triple-A.

Right field: Magglio Ordonez, Tigers — .334/.402/.506, .397 wOBA
Ordonez has certainly rewarded the Tigers for their decision to let his $18 million option vest; he has produced at an elite level even as he advances in age, just edging out Jayson Werth for the top spot on this list.

Designated hitter: Vladimir Guerrero, Rangers — .324/.370/.550, .393 wOBA
If the Angels weren’t already regretting their decision to let Guerrero leave and replace him with Hideki Matsui, they certainly are after he hit two more home runs against them Wednesday night. Finally healthy again, Guerrero is once again hitting like the “Impaler” that Anaheim knew and loved for so many years.

Starting pitcher: Adam Wainwright, Cardinals — 2.11 ERA, 2.73 FIP, 3.10 xFIP
He generally doesn’t get mentioned in the conversations about the best pitcher in baseball, but over the last year, he’s outpitched everyone, including Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum.

Relief pitcher: Luke Gregerson, Padres — 2.48 ERA, 1.81 FIP, 2.32 xFIP
The Padres have a great bullpen, but no one has been better than Gregerson, who is simply blowing hitters away on a nightly basis. The Cardinals have done a lot of things right over the last few years, but trading him to San Diego for Khalil Greene was not one of their finer moments.

You can’t fire all the players, the old saying goes, so you fire the manager. He is, after all, the easiest target. When a team performs poorly the front office can point to the guy in charge on the field, the figurehead, as the reason. It is, after all, his job to coax the best possible performances out of his players. If things go wrong, the front office can turn the manager into a symbol for the futility. By getting fans to focus on the symbol, the front office can take the heat off everyone else. And as Tim Kurkjian writes Thursday, the ever-increasing spotlight is making it harder than ever to be a big league skipper.

So far this season, we’ve seen three managers axed. After nearly three years of futility, the Baltimore Orioles finally showed Dave Trembley the door. A team in rebuilding mode, the Orioles probably wouldn’t have kept Trembley much longer anyway. But the team so greatly underperformed its modest expectations that management thought something had to change. Also, the Kansas City Royals fired Trey Hillman after a little more than two years on the job. While the Royals didn’t project to perform very well this season, they figured to be better than the 12-23 mark realized under Hillman. Under Ned Yost they have performed much better.

So it might also seem that the Florida Marlins fell short of expectations under Fredi Gonzalez. They were just 34-36, 7 1/2 games behind the first place Atlanta Braves, when the Marlins announced Gonzalez’s firing. This came as a disappointment after the 87-75, second-place finish from last year, and even the 84-77, third-place finish in 2008. The problem with this comparison is that the 2010 Marlins are not the 2008 or 2009 Marlins. They’re a different team that should carry a different set of expectations. Given the team’s preseason projection, it doesn’t appear that the team underperformed at all.

Using Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, here are the Marlins hitters’ projected weighted on-base average (wOBA) against what they have actually produced in 2010.

Only three hitters have come in below expectations. Ramirez, while not hitting to the .410 wOBA he posted last year, still ranks as MLB’s best shortstop. Maybin has since been sent to Triple-A for his poor performance. Cantu hasn’t been far below his projection. Nor has Coghlan, who has hit .316/.387/.502 since April 30. In other words, he has exceeded expectations for the last two months.

The pitchers, too, have been outperforming their projections. Here we can see the Marlins’ five starters and top two relievers projected Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) against what they’ve actually done.

This presents more of the same. A number of pitchers are greatly outpacing their projections. The only pitcher on that list not hitting his projected FIP is Nolasco, who has let a few too many fly balls leave the park. If his HR/FB ratio were around league average his FIP would be 3.95, which is much closer to his projected number.

When ESPN ran a season preview featuring ZiPS projected standings, the Marlins ended up with an average of 74.5 wins. Even rounding up, that’s a .463 winning percentage. Under Gonzalez they were 34-36, a .486 win percentage. It appears, then, that the Marlins have overachieved this season by about four wins, if they kept the pace of their first 70 games. This is nothing new under Gonzalez. The 2009 Marlins outpaced their Pythagorean record by five wins, and the 2008 team beat their Pythagorean record by three.

When he announced Gonzalez’s firing, Marlins President of Baseball Operations Larry Beinfest, said, “This team seems to be stuck in neutral.” But that doesn’t appear to be Gonzalez’s fault. His team, by all appearances, outperformed expectations in 2010. Yet he became the scapegoat for the Marlins’ inability to even further outpace their expected performance. However, with the team behind in the standings, the front office needed a symbol for Florida’s relative futility. That became Gonzalez — but he didn’t deserve it.

While everyone is talking about who’s going to make the All-Star team, here are five players we can be sure won’t be spending July 12-14 in Anaheim, unless they’re paying their own way. Starting with Matt Kemp, here are 2010’s biggest disappointments.

Matt Kemp, Dodgers
After signing a two-year extension in the offseason and hobnobbing with a Hollywood hottie, Kemp has put together a poor 2010. After hitting close to .300 last year, Kemp is hitting just .258 with a .316 on-base percentage. And his fielding has been even worse. While UZR may not be the most reliable in small samples, his mark of minus-16.5 is by far the worst of any center fielder in baseball, and it’s not even close.

Chone Figgins, Mariners
Figgins reached base nearly 40 percent of the time last season, but his OBP has dropped down to .337 this year. Some of this may stem from losing his line-drive stroke, but he’s also striking out far too often. Figgins has taken the walk of shame 17.5 percent of the time over his entire career but is striking out five percent more often this season. For a player who doesn’t have power and relies heavily on speed, he needs to put the ball in play a lot more often.

Adam Lind, Blue Jays
Lind made huge strides in 2009 but has regressed to his previous levels of performances. After swinging at about 25 percent of pitches outside of the zone in 2009, Lind is chasing pitches at a 32 percent rate. He is even swinging at more pitches inside the zone and is making far less contact overall. This has led to his strikeout rate rising almost 9 percent compared to last year, and he’s hitting just .204/.265/.344 on the year.

Randy Wolf, Brewers
The Brewers were counting on Wolf to anchor their rotation when they signed him to a three-year, $29.75 million contract this offseason, and he hasn’t performed up to expectations. Wolf is throwing 6 percent more balls compared to last season and is walking batters at nearly twice the rate. The result? A 4.92 ERA.

Trevor Hoffman, Brewers
The fact that the Brewers have two players on this list should partially explain their .447 winning percentage. During Hoffman’s historic career, he has been known for two things: “Hells Bells,” and his changeup. The music still plays whenever he comes in for a save, but the changeup doesn’t trot in with him. Since 2008, Hoffman has lost nearly 4 inches of downward movement on his change. When you can no longer keep hitters off balance with your fastball, losing movement on your most important pitch is a death sentence. The 42-year-old has allowed seven homers in 24 innings, and his days as a closer appear to be finished.

On April 12, the Minnesota Twins claimed possession of first place in the AL Central with a 5-2 win against the Boston Red Sox. Since then, the Twins have been in sole possession of first for 76 days and tied for one. For the first time since then, Minnesota is no longer atop the Central after losing to the Detroit Tigers, 7-5, on Monday night. Although the Twins battled back to within a run in the eighth inning, Twins ace Francisco Liriano’s four-run, first-inning meltdown was simply too much for the Twins to recover from.

Liriano started the inning by hitting Austin Jackson with a pitch. It was downhill from there, as the game log shows.

It certainly doesn’t appear that Liriano was getting burned by dribblers through the infield. Three of the five hits in the inning were classified as line drives by Baseball Info Solutions; another, Miguel Cabrera’s double, was a deep fly ball. It also doesn’t appear that Liriano’s velocity was down in the first inning, either. He threw 13 fastballs in the inning, averaging 93.8 mph. That’s almost exactly in line with his fastball velocity on the year.

Liriano put himself in a very bad situation with the hit batsman and then a bunt hit by Ramon Santiago. Then, as happens to even the best pitchers, he was burned by good hitters and poor location. After a single by Ryan Raburn loaded the bases, Cabrera hit a slider which was down out of the strike zone for a double. In the next at-bat, Liriano’s second pitch to Brennan Boesch was simply asking to be hit for extra bases.

Allowing cheap baserunners is particularly problematic for Liriano, as he struggles from the stretch relative to the rest of the league. The average pitcher has allowed batters to slug .396 with the bases empty this year, and .415 with runners on. Against Liriano this season, the opposition is slugging .313 with no one on base and .374 with men on. So even though the lefty is better than the league with runners on, the gap between his performance with the bases empty versus men on is larger than most.

This four-run inning by the Tigers raised their win expectancy to 78.8 percent before the Twins even got to the plate. Liriano managed to throw five strong innings despite his poor opener, but it simply wasn’t enough. The Tigers scored enough early and managed to hang on. As a reward, Detroit is now in first, and the race is on.

Though Stephen Strasburg has made just four major league starts, there is already some buzz that he deserves to make the All-Star team. It seems likely that he’ll end up getting picked by Charlie Manuel, the manager of the NL team, but if the All-Star Game is a representation of the season’s best players, especially when it comes to the pitchers, who aren’t voted on by the fans, Strasburg should not be considered this year. Other pitchers –- those who have been with the big club since Opening Day — have done more for their teams this season.

Strasburg should have six starts in the majors by the time the rosters are announced July 6. Even though his stats are at historical levels for someone who has made four starts, it has been just four games, and those starts have been against the Pirates, Indians, White Sox and Royals, the 30th-, 24th-, 20th- and 17th-ranked offenses in baseball. When the Royals are the best offense you have seen this season, your stats should be taken with a grain of salt.

With 34 players on the All-Star roster, there will probably be 12-14 pitchers selected, and three or four of them will be relievers. That means there are roughly 8-10 spots for starting pitchers. Using WAR, we can pinpoint 11 NL starting pitchers who easily surpass Strasburg in terms of value.

The main reason Strasburg’s WAR is below that of these pitchers is his lack of starts (about one-third fewer than the rest of the league’s starters when the rosters are set), yet even if he continues to pitch at his current level in his next two starts, it will still be hard for him to pass most of the pitchers listed above in seasonal value. He has the quality, but not the quantity, and if we’re just going by the numbers, he’s not an All-Star. Not this year.

Last night, Stephen Strasburg lost his first game as a major league pitcher, though not through much fault of his own, as his team fell to the Kansas City Royals, 1-0. Meanwhile, in Queens, N.Y., R.A. Dickey threw eight shutout innings for the New York Mets, continuing to offer his team a much-needed boost in their rotation. What do these two guys have in common?

Absolutely nothing.

Strasburg’s fastball averages 97.7 MPH, and he throws it 58 percent of the time. Dickey’s fastball averages 84.3 MPH, and he throws it 18 percent of the time. Dickey, of course, relies on a knuckleball to dance around and get outs. Strasburg just overpowers hitters with an assortment of pitches that is usually reserved for video games. But despite their disparate approaches, both have found success in getting big league hitters out this year. We thought it would be fun to compare how they’re doing it.

For Strasburg, it’s not that complicated. His plan is to get ahead in the count (67 percent first-pitch strikes), usually with his high-velocity fastball. Then, he makes hitters chase an assortment of pitches they can’t hit. Opponents have swung at 35.5 percent of the pitches he has thrown out of the strike zone, but made contact just 34.6 percent of the time. For comparison, the next-lowest contact rate on pitches outside the zone by a starter is 48.1 percent, by Jorge de la Rosa. When he gets hitters to chase, they come up empty, and he racks up the strikeouts.

Dickey can’t do that. Hitters are chasing his pitches slightly less often (29.3 percent), but are making contact twice as frequently — 70.2 percent of the pitches that opponents swing at outside of the strike zone they put the bat on, a pedestrian number that doesn’t explain how Dickey is striking out nearly seven batters per nine innings. The key for him is not to get hitters to fish, but to swing through pitches that they think they can whack.

Where Dickey has actually excelled this year has been on missing bats in the strike zone, where his 80.3 percent contact rate puts him just behind the league leader in that category, Clayton Kershaw. Yes, that’s right, hitters have an easier time making contact with a strike thrown from Stephen Strasburg than they do from R.A. Dickey, despite the Grand Canyon-sized difference in velocity. Here is a chart showing Dickey’s dominance in the zone. The red squares indicate a high percentage of pitches in that zone, blue is a low percentage.

As you can see, despite the erratic nature of the knuckler, Dickey is living right around the strike zone. And considering how hard of a time hitters have hitting it when it is in the zone, that’s good thing. He’s putting the knuckler in the zone, and yet, opposing hitters have not been able to catch up to it.

These two guys could not be any more different, but both are giving their teams a chance to win on a nightly basis.

It’s that time of year again: the time for hand-wringing about the way Major League Baseball selects its All-Star position players. Is there a way beyond all the gnashing of teeth about the alleged silliness of fan voting, stuffing the (virtual) ballot box, and so on? Maybe not. But there are more objective methods of measuring overall player value available to the public than in the past. Bloggers have come up with some ingenious suggestions for using multiple seasons or even full-blown projections to generate “true talent” All-Star teams, but let’s take a more simple approach using FanGraphs’ implementation of Wins Above Replacement to see what players have been the most valuable at each position in the league so far this season (as of June 22).

Joe Mauer is having a good season (if slightly disappointing for him) and just barely squeaks ahead of Victor Martinez. Mauer’s teammate Justin Morneau, on the other hand, is having a season even Albert Pujols would be proud of. Robinson Cano is stepping out from the shadows of more celebrated Yankees by having a dominant season at the plate and being above average in the field. Marco Scutaro is having a well-rounded season at shortstop, even if his presence is also a testimony to the relative weakness at that position in the American League this season.

This is about what we’ve come to expect from Evan Longoria, and given that he is only partially through his third season, that we have such high expectations for him says as much about him as any other superlatives. Fellow Ray Carl Crawford is having a good year even by his lofty standards, and Alex Rios, coming off a disastrous 2009, looks like one of the best outfielders in baseball. Two Rangers round out the All-WAR AL All-Stars: Josh Hamilton is the third outfielder mostly on the strength of his recent offensive outburst, and Vladimir Guerrero still has enough left in the tank to outhit the rest of the primary DHs in the AL.

There isn’t as much competition among the NL catchers, and Brian McCann is clearly the class of that group this season. Adrian Gonzalez, not surprisingly, is a major part of the Padres’ current revival. Chase Utley is having a down season relative to his usual standard, but it’s more than enough to be the best second baseman in the National League. Troy Tulowitzki is currently leading all NL shortstops but is also out for a couple of months, and Hanley Ramirez is right behind him at 2.2 WAR. Ryan Zimmerman is having another excellent year behind the veil of Strasburg mania. Marlon Byrd is playing less like the stopgap everyone thought he would and more like, well, an All-Star. Matt Holliday is the second best outfielder so far in the National League; despite not really having heated up with the bat yet, UZR is impressed with his glovework (in a small sample size).

The big surprise on the WAR leaderboards is the Giants’ Andres Torres, a capable player, but not someone one would have seen as an All-Star before this season, in which he has played well on both sides of the ball. There aren’t any “primary DHs” in the National League, of course, but Albert Pujols has been the most valuable hitter in the National League other than Gonzalez so far, and really, it would be laughable to have an All-Star Game without the best player in baseball, wouldn’t it?

While Rookie of the Year is usually a humble award relative to the MVP and Cy Young, the race for this year’s title may be just as exciting as those for the other major awards around baseball. Mike Fitzpatrick recently called the rise of 2010’s young crop of big league players a “Rookie Revolution,” but do the numbers match the hype? Indeed they do.

Compared to past seasons, MLB has seen an upshot in production from first-year players that is relatively unprecedented. First-year batters have amassed 9.0 wins above replacement thus far this season, and if they attain as many plate appearances as they’ve averaged since 2002, are on pace for 35 WAR for the season, which would beat the 2008 record of 27.6 by a significant margin. If rookie pitchers reach their same inning pitched total as last year, they’ll put up 37 WAR, tops since 2002.

While you’ve no doubt heard about the two big names in this class, it’s not just Stephen Strasburg and Jason Heyward making waves. Detroit’s Brennan Boesch is slugging an absurd .617 on the season, best among all rookies in baseball. His teammate, Austin Jackson, is hitting .308 with ten stolen bases in eleven tries and playing quality defense in center field. Third baseman David Freese of the Cardinals and first baseman Gaby Sanchez of the Marlins may be older rookies, but their numbers are not very amateurish. Freese is hitting .306/.370/.425 and Sanchez has an .819 OPS. Mets first baseman Ike Davis has impressed New York with his glove, but his eight homers have also helped an offense that has needed power. Like Davis, Rangers first baseman Justin Smoak hails from the 2008 draft class, and like Ike has hit eight dingers on the year. Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro has been solid in his forty games in Chicago, hitting .266 with very good defense.

Rookie pitchers are even threatening their bat-wielding counterparts on the mound. Besides Strasburg, Reds starting pitcher Mike Leake was the first player since Xavier Nady to go directly to the major leagues from college, but his 3.02 ERA and 4.06 Neftali Feliz of the Rangers has lit up radar guns around baseball with his 100 MPH fastball, but his 2.90 FIP and 2.87 ERA are just as exciting.

Incredibly, all of the players listed have a bunch of competition on the way. The Giants recently called up star catcher Buster Posey, who has hit .303 in twenty games so far, and the Indians called up catcher Carlos Santana, who has serious power behind the plate. The Pirates called up third baseman Pedro Alvarez, the second overall pick of the 2008 draft. Marlins outfielder Mike Stanton was on pace for sixty homers in the minors this year, and the nineteen-year-old hit a grand slam for his first big league homer in Miami after being called up last week.

While we don’t know if this is the best year for rookies of all time, it certainly is on pace to be the greatest in recent memory. Luckily for us, we don’t just get one year of these guys either. Baseball will be blessed with these players for a long time.