Best by Position

Three months into the season, let's take a look at the most productive hitters in baseball by position, using OPS as the metric for success.

Catcher
1. Jorge Posada, NYY - .927
2. Victor Martinez, CLE - .926
3. Russell Martin, LAD - .838

First Base
1. Prince Fielder, MIL - .997
2. Mark Teixeira, TEX - .959
3. Albert Pujols, STL - .944

Second Base
1. Chase Utley, PHI - .982
2. Brian Roberts, BAL - .866
3. Orlando Hudson, ARI - .857

Third Base
1. Alex Rodriguez, NYY - 1.113
2. Miguel Cabrera, FLA - .976
3. Aramis Ramirez, CHC - .922

Shortstop
1. Carlos Guillen, DET - .954
2. Edgar Renteria, ATL - .887
3. Hanley Ramirez, FLA - .883

Left Field
1. Barry Bonds, SFG - 1.097
2. Matt Holliday, COL - .973
3. Adam Dunn, CIN - .925

Center Field
1. Curtis Granderson, DET - .902
2. Torii Hunter, MIN - .899
3. Ichiro Suzuki, SEA - .893

Right Field
1. Magglio Ordonez, DET - 1.063
2. Vladimir Guerrero, LAA - .990
3. Ken Griffey Jr., CIN - .940

Designated Hitter
1. David Ortiz, BOS - .999
2. Gary Sheffield, DET - .931
3. Travis Hafner, CLE - .855

I Love Junior Griffey

A couple of good pieces on Ken Griffey Jr. over the past couple days sparked this emo passage to pass the time while at work.

My first brush with materialism came in the fourth grade, when I wanted nothing more than a $100 pair of Ken Griffey Junior's shoes for school that year. I begged and pleaded, but to no avail. I think I ended up with a pair of Grant Hill FILAs.

A die-hard Tigers fan, I received a green Seattle Mariners hat for my birthday that year, immediately turned it backward on my head and went outside to emulate Griffey's swing in a sandlot baseball game.

"The Kid" remains one of my favorite players to this day, and its evident that baseball fans across America feel the same way. He's a guy who should have gone down as the greatest to ever play the game. Furthermore, he would have done it without the assistance of performance enhancing drugs. The injuries are tragic, for sure, but it's nice to see the rest of the country appreciating Griffey as he deserves to be appreciated.

Jay Bruce, the AA version

I mentioned a month ago that the Reds' Jay Bruce could be a candidate for a mid-season bump up to Double-A, and he ended up getting the call about a week ago. After hitting .325/.379/.586 in the high-A Florida State League, he has now slugged three homers in his first five games with Chattanooga of the Southern League.

This guy is literally going to be starting for the Reds out of Spring Training next year. Looks like Cam Maybin is the last of the 3 phenom outfielders from the 2005 draft to make it to AA, but that might not be long now either.

Billy Beane is Wonderful

I noticed today that Daric Barton checks in at #1 this week on Baseball America's Prospect Hot Sheet. It really makes you think back to the Mark Mulder trade after the 2004 season. Billy Beane absolutely clowned on Walt Jocketty, with the A's getting Dan Haren, Daric Barton, and Kiko Calero in return for Mulder, who was only one year away from free agency.

Barton is now hitting .333/.426/.496 for Triple-A Sacramento, with more walks (41) than strikeouts (32). I believe he went into the season as #2 on the A's top prospect list despite a disappointing 2006 season. He seems primed for a call-up soon, though I find it kind of weird that the A's are starting him at third base half the time, what with Eric Chavez making rought $38 million over the next 3 1/2 years and all. Regardless, the A's would probably be better served to play Barton at first and have Nick Swisher take Shannon Stewart's spot in left.

Dan Haren is sick, and everybody knows it. 9-2, 1.78 ERA, 0.90 WHIP. Enough said. Haren, Johan Santana, Justin Verlander, John Lackey, and Josh Beckett are your five AL Cy Young candidates this year.

Hell, Beane even got some value out of Kiko Calero. He sucks this year, but he gave them two years of a roughly 3.30 ERA out of the pen.

I realize it's difficult to project injuries like Mulder's, but sometimes it's just sad to look back on these AJ Pierzynski-, Mark Mulder-type deals. I think Billy Beane gets a hard time from a lot of people who think he is overrated because of Moneyball, but let's face it, he's one of the best GMs in the game.

Take a Flyer on the Douchebags

EDIT: Marc Lancaster writes that the Rays held on to Dukes because they refused to deal him for a grossly undervalued return. Instead, they will hold onto him, hope he turns his life around, let him mash in Triple-A and hope his value increases. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me, from their perspective.


The trade deadline is heating up. Instead of blabbing incessantly about Mark Teixeira, I think we should take a look at a couple of guys whose trade value has plummeted and could be had for pennies on the dollar relative to what it would have taken around this time last year. Elijah Dukes and Lastings Milledge are two extremely toolsy prospects whose value has taken a hit due in large part to off the field issues. For a rebuilding team with an excess of middle-aged middle relievers, why not try to unload one of them and take a flier on a low-risk, high-reward clown with issues? If you're the orioles, the worst case scenario is trading acquiring Milledge from the Mets, and then cutting him after his misogynistic hip-hop record takes off and he spends more time in the strip club than the batting cage. Is that really a big deal, especially if you're unloading Jamie Walker's contract to do so? With a change of scenery, maybe Lastings develops into the .300/.375/.470 player he's supposed to, and he supplants Corey Patterson in CF for the long term. For the Orioles, what the hell else are you going to do?

Dukes is a bit more of a psychopath. His worst case scenario falls somewhere between domestic assault and serial murder. Scouts love him on the field, though. The D Rays are pretty much fed up with him, and with good reason. He needs to get out of Tampa. With every executive in baseball fully aware of this, the Rays have no leverage. He can be had for a slightly above average pitching prospect. Again, if you're the Royals or the Marlins, why not? You have to play the market in this situation, and at this point, because Elijah Dukes is insane, the market vastly undervalues him. For small-market teams that have very little chance of competing, you need to stockpile these assets as they become available.

As much as I hate Dave Littlefield and think that he is the worst GM in the game, the Pirates have been surprisingly active in searching for young talent to complement a rotation led by Tom Gorzelanny and Ian Snell. They are in the market for Duke as well as Braves stud catching prospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia. I believe I spelled that correctly without looking it up.

Random Stuff:

• I'm watching the Twins-Marlins game right now on MLB.tv, exclusively because of the fact that Johan is pitching. The Marlins announcers provided me with this asinine statistic: since 2003, Johan's record after the All-Star break: 42-4. His ERA is something around 2.00. Ridiculous.
  
• I think we can reach a solid verdict on Texas GM Jon Daniels after this trade deadline. His team sucks, but he has a lot of very marketable assets with which to rebuild. How he handles Teixeira, Gagne, and Otsuka will tell us a lot about his ability. As of now, the two major deals he has made since becoming the youngest GM in the game (trading Chris Young and Adrian Gonzalez for Adam Eaton and Akinori Otsuka; signing Michael Young to a very large deal) have not inspired much confidence for me. He can change that by doing well this July.
• I went to a Tigers-Nationals game at RFK on Monday night. Here's to hoping that the new ballpark in DC gives the fans something to rally around. Nats fans were literally outnumbered roughly 3-1 relative to Detroit fans. I don't blame them; the team is a joke and the stadium is an awful place to watch a ball game. I don't know that I trust Jim Bowden to turn the team around, but at least the plans for the park look pretty cool.
  

Sorry

So I haven't posted in 12 days. College graduation and the subsequent move out to DC and starting a new job and being exhausted and stuff kind of took precedence to the blog. I'm getting back into the grind though, so I hope I didn't lose much of the precious few readers I once may have had.

In the coming days, I'll post on a variety of subjects, including an extremely brief look at the draft, an examination of Lastings Milledge's trade value and where I think he'll end up, Elijah Dukes to Washington rumors, and some other stuff as it comes to me. I would like to take an in-depth look at some of the other divisions around baseball as well.

I'm back, I swear.

Draft is Imminent

We're a little over a half hour from the Rule IV draft, and I figure I'll satisfy those 4 readers who will be logging in between now and 2 PM with a healthy dose of draft rumors before we kick things off on ESPN2.

• The Cubs are really high on HS 3B Josh Vitters or HS RHP Rick Porcello with the 3rd pick. Vitters is in the general discussion regarding the top 5 of the draft, he's a right-handed corner infielder that can mash. Rick Porcello is the consensus 2nd best pitching prospect in the draft, behind David Price, but has dropped significantly in many mock drafts due to a reported $8 million price tag.
  
• The White Sox are picking 25th and heavily leaning toward a pitcher. One of the names on the list is Canadian High Schooler Phillipe Aumont, who I have seen on a lot of drafts going much earlier, some in the top 10. A hitter on their list in the first round is shortstop Justin Jackson, who went to Roberson High School in Asheville, NC. Another notable graduate? Cameron Maybin.
• Bill Conlin of Philly.com has posted a column for dumb people.
• Richard Griffin speculates that the J.P. Ricciardi will harken back to his Moneyball days and the Blue Jays will focus on college players with more than a few of their bevy of early pics.
• Jim Salisbury writes that the Phils will look to add high-ceiling offensive talent in the early rounds, and focus on solid pitching later on.

That's all I've got for now. I'm going to go crack a beer half in celebration of the draft and half in celebration of college graduation. It's going to be a fun day; enjoy the draft.