Losers of seven games in a row entering yesterday, the Brewers desperately needed a win against the first-place Reds. Holding a 4-2 lead entering the bottom of the ninth, the Brewers weren’t aware that the unceremonious end to Trevor Hoffman’s storied career was on the horizon. While the 42-year-old closer has been bad this season, suffice it to say he hasn’t had worse stuff this season than he had yesterday. Thanks to TexasLeaguers.com, we have this sad-looking graph that shows neither Hoffman’s fastball nor legendary changeup had any horizontal movement against Cincinnati:

Scott Rolen’s game-tying home run came on one of those straight change-ups, leading to Hoffman’s third loss and fifth blown save of the season. Even if last night is viewed as an anomaly, there are plenty of indicators that Hoffman is pitching at an all-time low level. Not since 2002 — when FanGraphs started tracking pitch stats — has the right-hander’s changeup been below-average relative to the rest of the league. This season, it has been one of the least valuable 20 changeups in all of baseball, worth 2.2 runs below average. (It was 8.3 runs above average in 2009.) His fastball, which has always been a weapon merely as a counter to the change, has taken a predictable beating as a result. The pitch has a tiny 2.1 whiff rate (versus a league average of around 8 percent), and batters are having no problem hitting it hard and into the air.

Always a fly-ball pitcher, Hoffman is allowing elevation at never-before-seen heights in 2010. Since 2002, Hoffman’s ground-ball percentage has been between 30 and 40 percent every season. This year, through a little more than 50 balls in play, he’s allowed just seven ground balls, for a minute 13.7 ground-ball rate. Considering that 20 percent of the fly balls he’s allowed have left the stadium, we’re seeing a bad combination of epic proportions. Hoffman’s 13.15 ERA is probably higher than it should be, but considering a career-high walk rate, his fielding independent pitching (FIP) suggests it should still be 10.48.

This season, the Brewers have trusted their worst pitcher with one of their most important roles. It is strange to think about Hoffman in any inning besides the ninth, but if the right-hander understandably doesn’t want to retire on this note, then he can’t be trusted with anything besides mopping up until some semblance of good stuff comes back.

According to CoolStandings.com, the Brewers now have a 6.1 percent chance of making the playoffs as they stand eight games back of the Reds. It’s likely that those 6.1 percent of simulations in which the Brewers made the comeback were not with Hoffman pitching high leverage innings.

The Minnesota Twins have issued the fewest walks of any team in baseball, despite playing in the league that features the designated hitter. There isn’t even another team within shouting distance of their 2.40 BB/9 ratio — the Phillies are next at 2.8 walks per nine — and the Twins’ strike-throwing ways are one of the main reasons they sit atop the American League Central.

Obviously, not giving out free passes is a good thing for a pitcher, but just how valuable of a skill is it? Let’s find out.

One way of measuring a single variable’s effect on an overall result is to determine the coefficient of determination. That is essentially a five-dollar phrase for “how much does Thing A cause Thing B to happen?” or, if you’re mathematically inclined, it’s the square of the correlation between two things.

This coefficient can be between 0 and 1, where zero is no relationship between two items and one is a perfect relationship (when one thing happens, so does the other, every single time), and these relationships can be either positive or negative — a negative correlation suggests that when one thing happens, the result is less
likely to occur.

So, what does this show the relationship between walks and winning percentage to be? The coefficient of determination between team BB/9 and team winning percentage since the wild-card era began is 0.21, a number that suggests that it’s not the only thing you need to win games, but it’s a pretty good thing to succeed at. In other words, it means that 21 percent of a team’s winning percentage can be explained simply by walk rate. And since 1995 (the dawn of the wild card), 57 percent of playoff teams have finished in the top 10 in all of baseball in BB/9 ratio.

While you still need to do things like score runs (as the Seattle Mariners are currently proving night in and night out), assembling a pitching staff of strike-throwers will get you well on your way to winning baseball games. Just ask the Twins.

John Lackey has never been a strikeout artist. He’s never struck out 200 in a season nor reached the hallowed ground of recording one K per inning for a season. But this year, it’s getting a little ridiculous. He’s striking out batters at a career-low rate (5.58 per nine innings) and he’s getting battered around the park, such as he did in a 5-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers on Sunday. This isn’t what the Red Sox thought they were buying with their $85 million.

Normally, when a pitcher has an unexpected bad start, the traditional “luck” statistics (batting average on balls in play, strand rate and home run rate) tell the tale. But in this case, they don’t. Lackey has a .308 batting average on balls in play (which usually ends up at .300 across baseball) and has stranded exactly 70 percent of runners, which is also right around league average. He’s even giving up the standard amount of home runs per fly ball (8.5 percent this year, usually around 10 percent across baseball). It’s not a case of poor luck, it seems.

Looking at batters’ swing rates when they step in the box against Lackey doesn’t help much, either. Batters are reaching at offerings outside the zone about as often as usual. It seems that Lackey is missing the zone a little (45.2 percent in the strike zone, 50.4 percent career) and batters are making more contact than usual (84.1 percent contact rate, 80.3 percent career). But why are batters making more contact with his pitches?

He hasn’t lost any velocity. His fastball and curveball are within 0.2 mph of their career levels. The slider and changeup have actually gained oomph, but perhaps that is part of the problem. The difference between his fastball and changeup has gone from 8.2 mph for his career to 7.1 mph this season. But Lackey throws the changeup only around 5 percent of the time, so that effect probably isn’t huge.

The answer may lie in Lackey’s curve in the end. At FanGraphs, we keep a statistic that tries to put value on the results of each type of pitch in a pitcher’s arsenal. By using game state statistics before and after a slider, for example, we can assign value to that pitch. Looking at Lackey’s career, his fastball (plus-27.6 runs career) and curve (plus-51.8 runs career) have always been his best pitches. His slider has usually been around scratch or better (plus-6.4 runs career).

This year? His fastball (plus-1.1 runs) and slider (plus-1.2 runs) have been doing fine. For only the second time in his career, however, the curveball is currently negative (minus-1.6 runs). Though neither the horizontal movement, vertical movement nor the velocity numbers show anything really unique about his curveball this season, the pitch is just not providing good results for Lackey this year. Why? It’s hard to know, but don’t be surprised if we start to hear murmurs about him tipping his pitches.

On Sunday, Lackey threw the curve 31 times. It actually resulted in a strikeout three times, so it wasn’t terrible, but the curve also resulted in three singles and Ramon Santiago’s two-run homer. If you’re wondering what Lackey is lacking, it seems it’s his signature curve.

Adam Wainwright pitched 233 innings during the 2009 season while posting a 2.63 ERA and a 3.11 FIP and earning himself a fair share of Cy Young Award votes. It would have been perfectly acceptable and understandable if Wainwright’s performance took a step back this season as hitters adjusted and Wainwright’s ERA increased. Yet the 28-year-old hasn’t taken a step back, and so far, he’s actually taking a step forward by pitching well enough in his first seven starts to record an ERA of 2.08 and a FIP of 2.55.

Seemingly the only change in Wainwright’s approach is an increase in the amount of breaking balls used. Earlier this season on TMI, Mark Simon noted how frequently Wainwright was using his curve last year, and he is even more reliant on his breaking stuff this season.

Throughout his career, about half of the pitches Wainwright threw were fastballs. This season he’s throwing his heater less than 42 percent of the time and instead focusing on his always excellent slider and curve. FanGraphs’ linear weights based on pitch type give run values for each offering, and for his career, Wainwright’s curve is worth 45.2 runs above average and his slider 35.3 runs. It’s a stark contrast from the minus-7.6 runs his fastball is valued at, or the plus-3.9 run value of his change-up.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Wainwright’s success is how predictable his usage has become. The only counts in which Wainwright is throwing a fastball more than 50 percent of the time are obvious fastball situations (1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 2-1, 3-1, and 3-2). He’s using his curveball more than 70 percent of the time in 0-2 counts, and nearly 60 percent of the time in 1-2 and 2-2 counts.

When Wainwright gets ahead –- and he usually does –- batters have to know the hammer is on the way, and yet they still can’t hit the thing. Nearly 13 percent of the curves Wainwright has thrown have been swung at and missed and roughly 70 percent have been strikes –- whether it be of the foul, called, or swinging variety. As far as out pitches go, it’s hard to find one that gets the job done as often as Wainwright’s curve, and it’s easy to see why he’s on the path to a career year.

Pop quiz: Under what circumstances is it reasonable to be excited about a pitcher who posted a 6.12 ERA last season?

Answer: When that pitcher is Texas Rangers left-hander Derek Holland.

Derek Holland’s first season in the Majors was superficially poor. He went 8-13 with 26 homers allowed and had a 6.12 ERA. But look a little bit closer, at the events over which Holland — or any pitcher — exerts the most control, and the young lefty’s season has to be considered a success.

He posted a strikeout rate of 6.96 K/9, a walk rate of only 3.06 BB/9, and induced ground balls on 41.5 percent of balls in plays (only slightly below league average of around 43 percent). All that added up to a 4.38 xFIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, normalized for home-run rate), which is designed to look like ERA, but removes all the elements of luck. For a 22-year-old in his big league debut, a 4.38 xFIP is excellent.

So what’s the disconnect here? Basically everything that could go wrong for Holland did go wrong. His batting average on balls in play was .321, compared to a league average right around .300. His left-on-base percentage (a.k.a. strand rate) came in at 64.7 percent, below a typical figure of 70 percent. Home runs per fly ball? Yep, he got unlucky there, too, conceding homers on about 15 percent of fly balls, even while the average pitcher finds his number settling somewhere in the range of 10 percent. These are all elements of pitching that the pitcher has little control over. When these stats deviate heavily from the norm, it usually points to luck.

All of which is why there was some confusion among the sabermetric ranks when Texas opted to begin the season with the less talented Matt Harrison in the big league rotation while Holland got sent down to Triple-A. Such confusion was justified: Holland breezed his way through six Pacific Coast League starts (38 2/3 IP, 37 strikeouts, seven walks — good for a 2.44 xFIP). Over six starts of his own, Harrison struggled, posting a mediocre 4.82 xFIP before finding his way to the 15-day disabled list with bicep tendinitis.

Yesterday, making his season debut in Harrison’s vacated rotation spot against the A’s, Holland pitched like the guy we could have expected. He went six innings, struck out seven, walked one, and induced grounders on over half of his balls in play. He didn’t allow a run and earned him a much-deserved win.

If Holland is able to come close to matching last night’s performance in his next start — most likely next Monday, at home, versus the struggling Angels — he is almost certain to take Harrison’s spot. Such a course of events would be quite intriguing, as it should give the Rangers — along with Colby Lewis, Rich Harden, C.J. Wilson, and Scott Feldman — one of the deepest starting rotations in the league.

Today on ESPN.com, Jerry Crasnick writes about players who are carrying their teams in a variety of ways. And while we can’t put a number on any emotional or intangible lift a player gives his squad, we do have some cold, hard numbers that tell us which guys are really carrying their squads. To start, let’s look at which players have the highest percentage of their team’s wins above replacement.

Name                 WAR          %
Shin-Soo Choo        1.5        14%        
Nelson Cruz          1.9        13%       
Chase Utley          2.5        13%        
Alex Rios            1.7        12%       
Andrew McCutchen     1.1        12%
Michael Bourn        1.2        12%
Vernon Wells         2.0        11%
Jered Weaver         1.1        11%
Franklin Gutierrez   1.4        11%      
Justin Morneau       2.2        10%

Based on the numbers, no one is carrying his team quite like Choo, but that’s a byproduct of being an excellent player on a bad team. The same can be said for McCutchen and Bourn. But I think the spirit of carrying a team implies something more. To make it relevant, you have to be able to carry a team that wins.

Therefore, let’s give extra credit to Chase Utley and Roy Halladay of the Phillies. The pair has the most WAR of any batter (2.5) and pitcher (2.2) respectively this season and account for 23 percent of a first-place team’s WAR.

Moving to the American League, Nelson Cruz and Justin Morneau are both are off to scorching starts for division-leading clubs. Morneau’s 2.2 wins above replacement is already more than half as many wins as he has in any season of his career, including his 2006 MVP season and accounts for 10 percent of the Twins’ total WAR. Cruz’s 1.9 wins above replacement is possibly more impressive given that he did that in only 19 games before hitting the disabled list with a hamstring issue. He’s been a force in a lineup that has so far disappointed in offensive production. His production has accounted for 13 percent of the Rangers’ total WAR.

On the other end of the spectrum are some players that teams were counting on to perform and have faltered so far. Chief among those would be Aramis Ramirez (-0.9 WAR) of the Cubs, who has been well below replacement level.

Howie Kendrick (-0.5 WAR) and Erick Aybar (-0.2 WAR) of the Angels have seen bigger than expected regressions from their highs in 2009. Both are under replacement level and are a big reason why the Angels have been so disappointing. Over in Boston, a team that Theo Epstein built on pitching and defense has seen good hitting and the expected solid defensive play, but has been completely let down by its vaunted pitching staff. Josh Beckett’s struggles are highly visible (0.5 WAR), but the entire staff has been less than dominating, and excluding Daniel Bard and Jonathan Papelbon, the bullpen has combined for -0.6 WAR. Defenders can only do so much when the ball is being lined all over the park.

If the Atlanta Braves could have one mulligan from this past offseason, it probably would be their decision to non-tender second baseman Kelly Johnson. While the Braves have struggled to hit for power, Johnson has supplied it in droves for the Arizona Diamondbacks this season. He has 10 home runs already, which is as many as all Braves not named Jason Heyward have hit. But although Johnson’s torrid start has been impressive, it’s unlikely he’ll remain this good throughout 2010.

Johnson first showed signs of his potential in 2007, when he hit .276/.375/.457 (batting average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage) as the Braves’ full-time second baseman. He struggled in the next two years, however, hence the non-tender. In many ways, the start to his 2010 season resembles that breakout season. His walk and strikeout rates are back in line. His batted ball data also line up fairly well, although Johnson is hitting a few more fly balls in 2010. Still, the results on those fly balls have been much better. Of the 35 fly balls he’s hit, 10 have left the park (28.6 percent). That mark is almost certainly unsustainable during the course of a full season and is higher than any hitter’s rate last year.

In 2009, only seven NL hitters cleared the fence with more than 20 percent of their fly balls. Mark Reynolds led the way with 26 percent. (See list below.) One thing that stands out about the names you see is that they all have high career isolated power (ISO) numbers, a statistic that is calculated by subtracting batting average from slugging percentage. Among last year’s leaders in home run rate, only Raul Ibanez doesn’t have a career ISO of .200 or higher, and he’s close at .194. Johnson has a career ISO of .178, so he is a prime candidate to regress.

2009 N.L. HR/FB Leaders / Career Isolated Power:
Mark Reynolds    26.0%  /  .247
Ryan Howard      25.4%  /  .301
Prince Fielder   23.1%  /  .261
Adrian Gonzalez  22.2%  /  .225
Raul Ibanez      21.1%  /  .194
Adam Dunn        21.1%  /  .270
Albert Pujols    20.1%  /  .293

Ibanez actually provides a cautionary tale of his own. Before his mid-June injury last season, he hit 22 home runs on 85 fly balls, a 25.9 percent rate, while his career rate is just 13 percent. From his mid-July return through the end of the season, he hit 75 fly balls, only 12 of which left the park (16 percent). That percentage still ranks above his career mark but certainly brought down the numbers he produced during his powerful start.

Even when Johnson does come back to Earth, he’ll likely continue to produce for the Diamondbacks. Sabermetrician Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projection, which he updates daily, has Johnson pegged for a .219 ISO the rest of the way, so his power should remain intact even when more of his fly balls start dropping into gloves or gaps. He won’t sustain his .355 ISO for the next five months, but a .251 mark, per ZiPS, would represent a huge step forward for Johnson.

Headed into the season, the Los Angeles Dodgers were considered favorites to win their third straight NL West title, but they now find themselves sitting in fourth place. The team activated Manny Ramirez off the disabled list over the weekend and will gladly welcome his bat back into the everyday lineup, but scoring runs has been the least of the team’s worries. A lack of run prevention is the shovel that the Dodgers have dug themselves in a hole with.

For starters, the Dodger pitching staff has really struggled to find the plate. Their starters have walked 4.36 batters per nine innings pitched, which is the highest mark in the National League. It’s possible that their pitchers are afraid to throw strikes because their defense isn’t catching anything. Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) has the Dodger defense costing the team 25.5 runs so far relative to average, worst in baseball. John Dewan’s defensive runs saved metric agrees, knocking the Dodgers defense to the tune of -19 runs. The primary problem? Matt Kemp, who was publicly called out by general manager Ned Colletti for his poor defense two weeks ago. While Kemp did win a Gold Glove last year, the Dodger GM’s assessment of his center fielder’s defensive butchery is confirmed by the data.

DRS says he’s cost the Dodgers -14 runs; UZR has him at -11.8, which is by far the lowest in baseball at his position. That’s a staggering amount of runs this early in the season. The worst center fielders might do that over the course of a year, not over the course of thirty or so games. (For context, Vernon Wells had the worst UZR among center fielders last year at -16.6.) While there’s bound to be some noise in such small sample stats, there is no doubt that the normally reliable Kemp — who had a UZR of 3.1 last year — has been bad in the outfield, whether judged by the eyes or the numbers. As Colletti said, “It’s a shame that he would go from where he was a year ago to revert back to when the ball goes up in the air and you’re not sure where it’s going, or if it’s going to get caught.”

If the Dodgers are going to make up the ground they’ve lost in the early stages of the season, they must get back to some very basic, fundamental principles of the game. Pitchers need to throw more first pitch strikes and stop issuing so many silly walks, and their fielders, particularly Matt Kemp, need to start getting to more balls.

While the San Francisco Giants have put together one of the best starting rotations in all of baseball, they entered the 2010 season with legitimate questions about where they’d find any offense. A month into the season, one of the early answers has been Nate Schierholtz, a guy who didn’t even crack their opening day lineup.

After collecting three hits Thursday night, including his first home run of the season, Schierholtz is now hitting .381/.458/.587, and is establishing himself as a potential every-day player for the Giants. He had shown the ability to make contact and hit for power in the minors, but an undisciplined approach led to unproductive major league results, such as his career .329 on-base percentage. However, Schierholtz is showing signs of offensive development at age 26.

In addition to the three hits Thursday night, he also drew his seventh walk of the season, which doesn’t sound that impressive until you realize that he managed only 16 walks in 308 plate appearances a year ago. He’s managed to work his way on base while simultaneously cutting down on his strikeouts, which is no easy feat. The combination of improved contact and better selectivity has allowed Schierholtz to make the most of the offensive skills he’s been given, and the Giants have to be thrilled with the results to date.

He won’t keep hitting .381, of course, but Schierholtz’s overall game is fairly similar to that of former Giants outfielder Randy Winn, who combined gap power, good contact skills and quality defense in the outfield to become one of San Francisco’s better regular players. UZR thinks very highly of Schierholtz’s glove in right field, so if he can sustain the newfound patience and keep hitting doubles with some frequency, the Giants may just have found a new right fielder.

It is difficult to find a bargain on the free-agent market. While teams can often find players who fit their needs, they often have to pay through the nose to get them. For example, Torii Hunter is a perfect fit for the Angels, but at $18 million per year, they’re paying a heavy premium for his services.

In his column today, Jayson Stark examines some of the most untradable contracts in baseball. But there are still values to be found on the free-agent market. Here are five guys who have turned out to be excellent free-agent bargains.

J.D. Drew, Red Sox (2007 — five years, $70 million): The Boston faithful might not appreciate him, but after his rocky debut season with the Red Sox, Drew has been excellent. In each of the past two years, his OPS has been above .900, which placed him in the top three among AL outfielders. According to Dollars, a metric we use at FanGraphs that converts wins above replacement to what a player would receive as a free agent, Drew has been worth $47.1 million in his three years in Boston, which is more than $5 million more than he is being paid. As long as his performance doesn’t completely crater over the next two years, he’ll have been worth every penny.

Ryan Dempster, Cubs (2009 — four years, $52 million) Dempster began his career as a starter, but moved to the bullpen when he signed with the Cubs in 2004. After he struggled in 2006 and 2007, they moved him back to the rotation for the 2008 season, and Dempster responded brilliantly, posting a 2.96 ERA in 206 2/3 innings. He still pitched well in 2009 after the new contract (3.65 ERA in 200 innings), and has started strong once again in 2010. According to Dollars, he was worth $16.4 million last year while being paid $8 million (his contract is back-loaded). He’s not an ace, but dependable midrotation starters are extremely valuable.

Casey Blake, Dodgers (2009 — three years, $18 million) The Dodgers liked what they saw of Blake after acquiring him from the Indians in a 2008 midseason trade, and they re-signed him before the 2009 season. In the first year of his new contract, he was incredibly valuable to Los Angeles, registering an .832 OPS while playing excellent defense at third. That performance was worth $20.7 million, so he’s already paid for himself. That’s some good news for Dodgers fans, considering the team gave up catcher Carlos Santana, one of the best prospects in baseball, in the trade to get him.

Juan Rivera, Angels (2009 — three years, $12.75 million) Rivera isn’t as good as Drew, but his salary is also much lower. The Angels paid him just $3.25 million last season and he produced an .810 OPS, which was worth more than $14 million. This year hasn’t gone as well, but it won’t take much for him to be worth his salary. Like Blake, he’s already paid for himself anyway.

Brad Penny, Cardinals (2010 — one year, $7.5 million) Penny’s return to the NL has gone very well to date, and he’s looking like Dave Duncan’s newest reclamation success, though he did pitch well down the stretch for the Giants after faltering with the Red Sox. His new splitter has produced ground balls aplenty and he has kept the ball in the park. He won’t sustain his 1.99 ERA, but he doesn’t have to justify the Cardinals’ minor investment in his right arm. According to Dollars, he’s already been worth $4.1 million, and it’s barely May.