A little more than a year ago, I wrote a post about Josh Hamilton. It was June 2nd, and he'd played in just 35 of his team's first 50 games, hitting an ugly .240/.290/.456 in the games he did play, and he was about to go in for an(other) MRI. Here's (part of) what I wrote:

I love Josh Hamilton. I just want to see him hitting baseballs a long way for many more years. I know I'm not exactly alone in that sentiment, but I just don't think you can deny that the world is a slightly better place when Josh Hamilton is playing baseball (and playing well). He's 28 years old. I would like to see him smiling and having fun and making the game look easy for another ten years or so. Given all he's put himself through and all he's done to pull himself back, that doesn't seem like too much to ask.

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Rick Sutcliffe!

Sutcliffe was called "The Red Baron" in his playing days, and pretty much just goes by "Sut" now as a broadcaster. That seems to me a kind of sad commentary on the progression of our society. Or maybe it just tells you what people think of him as a broadcaster.

It was about this time 26 years ago that the best thing that has ever happened (professionally), to Rick Sutcliffe happened, all because both he and his team had gotten off to a poor start. On June 13, sitting at 22-34 and already 20 1/2 games out of first place, Cleveland shipped Sutcliffe, a former Rookie of the Year and one-time All-Star who was set to be a free agent for the first time after the season, to the Cubs for a package that included young outfielders Joe Carter and Mel Hall (actually a pretty nice package for Cleveland).

For the rest of that 1984 season, Sutcliffe pitched very, very well. Coming in with a career K/9 of less than 5.5, Sutcliffe was suddenly striking out more than a batter per inning while walking just 2.3 batters per nine, a better than 40% reduction from his career norm of about 4.0. In 150 1/3 innings with the Cubs, he put up a 2.69 ERA (and pitched better than that, with a FIP of 2.28). The Cubs won 18 of his 20 starts, and Sutcliffe himself went 16-1. On June 19, the day of Sutcliffe's first start, the Cubs were half a game behind the Mets and two behind the Phillies, at 34-29. From then out, they played .633 ball from then on out and buried the rest of the division, finishing 6.5 games ahead of the Mets, who'd been a half game ahead of them in second place pre-Sutcliffe.

To the baseball media's way of thinking, what this meant was that Rick Sutcliffe was solely responsible for the Cubs winning the division. 16-1, right? The Cubs turned their fortunes around by 7 games (vis-a-vis the Mets), and Sutcliffe himself was +15 games!

Sutcliffe didn't just win the Cy Young Award; he won the Cy Young Award unanimously. 19 year old Rookie of the Year Dwight Gooden threw 68 more innings than Sutcliffe in the NL, yet gave up two fewer home runs (7 to 9). He also posted a lower ERA (2.60/2.69), struck out an eye-popping 276, won 17 games, and put up a crazy 1.69 FIP. Yet Gooden didn't get a single first-place vote. Bruce Sutter threw 122 2/3 innings (just 28 fewer than Sutcliffe's NL total), posted a 1.54 ERA and saved a then-record 45 games; didn't convince a single soul that he was better than Sutcliffe.

Sutcliffe seems like a pretty good guy (if a rather uninformative broadcaster and once kind of an embarrassment), and I don't mean to disparage him on his birthday...but then, he did his job brilliantly. It's not his fault the writers who voted on the award had no idea what they were looking at. Sutcliffe had a great three and a half months, but there's just no way you can look at his numbers next to Gooden's (or Sutter's, or one or two other guys) and think Sutcliffe was the best or most valuable pitcher in the National League. The various WAR systems disagree on how much the pitchers were actually worth, but they all come out to about the same result: by FanGraphs' WAR, Sutcliffe's 5.1 NL WAR (and 6.4 overall) falls well behind Gooden's 8.6; by BBREF's WAR, Sutcliffe is 11th in the NL at 3.7, behind not only Gooden's 5.4 and Sutter's 4.7 but Mario Soto, Alejandro Pena, and Ricks Rhoden and Mahler, among others.

This was brought up a few times back in 2008, when CC Sabathia went 11-2 in 130 innings for the Brewers and finished 5th in the Cy Young balloting, including one first-place vote. The difference, though, is that Tim Lincecum's 2008, while excellent, was not Dwight Gooden's 1984. If you combine his time with Cleveland (and I don't know why you would for an NL award, but whatever), Sabathia really was the best pitcher in baseball that year. In 1984, by contrast, a good pitcher moved to the NL and had 150 really, really good innings...and was allowed to steal the award from one of the most talented young pitchers the game has ever seen, who had had a phenomenal full season. The voters have made worse decisions in terms of player quality -- Morneau and 2006 and Dawson in 1987 were further away from being the MVP than Sutcliffe was from being the best pitcher here -- but this might be their single most obvious miss. Dwight Gooden was your 1984 Cy Young Award-deserving pitcher. That's all there is to it.

Sutcliffe had three or four really good seasons (including his Rookie of the Year campaign of 1984, an ERA title in 1982, and his league-leading 18-win season in 1987) and a lot of pretty poor ones. It all added up to a guy who was right around an average starting pitcher in nearly 400 starts, which is awfully valuable (30.0 WAR). But with three All-Star appearances, a Rookie of the Year Award, a Cy Young Award, two other top-five Cy Young finishes and a top-five MVP finish, he very well may be the most highly decorated average pitcher who has ever lived.

My apologies to Bill, as I had hoped to get a post up earlier today.  But then work went to hell and I was unable to get to it until now.  But it’s still Wednesday, so here’s your daily something:

We have all enjoyed the career of Junkballin’ Jamie Moyer.  He’s not a Hall of Famer, mind you.  After 24 seasons in the Major Leagues, Moyer has managed to win 265, against 201 losses.  His 3.23 ERA (4.23) is only 4% better than the leagues he pitched in.  In almost 4000 innings, Moyer has struck out less than 2400 batters.  And his average fastball hasn’t topped 82 miles per hour since 2002.  hat said, Moyer has enjoyed something close to  banner season in 2010.  He’s the oldest pitcher since Phil Niekro.  He’s among the ten oldest men to play a major league game, and mny of the othes (Satchel Paige, Minnie Minoso, Jim O’Rourke, Deacon McGuire were novelty acts.  Moyer, meanwhile, has managed to hang above replacement level, has two complete games and a shutout this year, and tonight managed to beat the World Champion Yankees.  Moyer went 8 strong innings, striking out five and giving up only 3 hits (two of which were solo homers).

And sure, it’s hilarious to make fun of how old Jamie Moyer is, as the Mariners did all the way back in 2006.

But it’s more revealing to really consider Moyer’s career in a larger context, beyond his statistics and beyond he Methuselah jokes.  Here are a few things to consider:

• Jamie Moyer has pitched during he administrations of five US Presidents, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, and Obama
• Jamie Moyer debuted with Greg Maddux on the 1986 Chicago Cubs.  Maddux was three years younger.  Maddux retired two years ago with 355 victories; Moyer’s still pitching, and is just 89 wins behind him.
• Jamie Moyer played with Ron Cey, who played with Hoyt Wilhelm, who played with Bob Elliot, who played with Heine Manush, who played with Ty Cobb.  That’s five degrees of separation.
• Jamie Moyer debuted on June 14, 1986.  Two months later, Nick Adenhart was born in Maryland.  Adenhart was tragically killed when his car was hit by a drunk driver in April of last year.  Adenhart’s entire life including his major league career took place during the career of Jamie Moyer.
• In addition to Maddux, Moyer also outlasted Mark Grace, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, Juan Gonzalez, Kenny Rogers, Armando Benitez, and Nomar Garciparra, despite being on the roster already when each them debuted.

• And, perhaps most impotantly, Moyer is the last remaining active player from the 1988 Panini Baseball Sticker album that I tried desperately to complete in the winter of ‘88.  Just look:

Alas, it’s 22 years later.  My sticker book still isn’t finished, but neither is Jamie Moyer.  And at this rate, I just might have time to get done before he does.  Anybody have any doubles?

The All-Star Game is still nearly a month away and the halfway point for most teams is still 15 or 16 games away...but people have been filling out All-Star ballots for like a year now. So why not give you mine? (Also, the Baseball Bloggers Alliance is tabulating its members' All-Star ballots, so I wanted to get mine in before I forgot.)

American League
Catcher: Joe Mauer (.316/.393/.445, 1.8 WAR)
I generally believe that the last full year (All-Star break to All-Star break) should determine the All-Star rosters -- along with a heavy dose of good ol' subjectivity -- so Mauer would very likely get the nod even if he hadn't been the best catcher in the league so far this year...but he has been, pretty comfortably ahead of Victor Martinez. It's unlikely that he'll ever match his 2009, but even if he's reverted completely back to his 2008-and-earlier form, all you're left with is the best player in the American League.

First Base: Justin Morneau (.344/.455/.624, 4.0 WAR)
But it's this guy who's been the best player in the AL for the first sixty-plus games. He's slipped a bit, as he had to, from his amazingly hot start with the bat, but he's still edging out Youkilis and Cabrera as the best hitter in the AL, and he's been the best defender at the position -- his 6.4 UZR is more than twice the next-best AL 1B's total (and that's Kendry Morales, who won't be adding to it any time soon). It becomes a lot closer between Miggy and Morneau if we consider the second half of last year...but I kind of think that when a guy's been the best player in the league and is generally recognized as an All-Star calibre player to begin with, he should start. Also, while Morneau was hurt for the end of the year, which nearly cost his team the pennant, Cabrera got drunk and blew off the end of the year, and very likely did cost his team the pennant. So there's that.

Second Base: Robinson Cano (.368/.414/.609, 3.8 WAR)
This one's a runaway. Cano is hard on Morneau's heels for best WAR in the majors. His .435 wOBA is fourth in the majors and nearly 60 points ahead of the next best AL second baseman. I think Dustin Pedroia is your runner up; Orlando Hudson has the next-best WAR at 2.1, but Pedroia isn't far behind at 1.8, and he gets the nod on his second-half 2009 and just generally being a better player.

Third Base: Evan Longoria (.321/.391/.573, 3.3 WAR)
If Mauer isn't the AL's best player going forward, Longoria is. I don't know where he stands on RBI and such, but he should probably be considered the favorite for MVP right now (Morneau or Cano would deserve it if the season ended today, but Longoria's more likely to sustain it). Adrian Beltre is your surprise runner-up, but again, it's not a hard choice.

Shortstop: Derek Jeter (.290/.346/.435, 2.0 WAR)
He's come back a great deal toward his norms since his weird start, increasing his walk rate and swinging at fewer bad pitches. He's not done yet, and he's still the best in the AL (but like Mauer, he'd probably still deserve it if he were merely one of the best). Marco Scutaro is proving that last year wasn't (entirely) a fluke, and probably deserves the first bench spot.

Outfield: Alexis Rios (.315/.378/.568, 3.3 WAR), Carl Crawford (.300/.353/.478, 3.1 WAR), Ben Zobrist (.311/.379/.445, 2.4 WAR)
Alex Rios is a phenomenal comeback story that probably deserves his own piece. Carl Crawford is very likely in his last year as one of the most underrated players in the game. Ben Zobrist is in a pretty tight race with Shin-Soo Choo, Magglio Ordonez and some others for that third spot, but Zobrist gets it as much for last year, when he was arguably the best player in the league, as for this year, when he's merely been among the best. What I love about this outfield is that none of these three guys is a center fielder [edit: nevermind, Rios is one this year, but he's been predominantly a RF throughout his career], yet it would have a decent chance of being the best defensive outfield in ASG history.

Designated Hitter: Vladimir Guerrero (.336/.370/.563, 2.0 WAR)
Hasn't had a batting average this high since 2004, an OBP this high since 2007, or a SLG this high since 2005. On pace for a bit over 5.0 WAR, which would be his best since 2005 as well. I'm happy with this (re-)development.

National League
Catcher: Miguel Olivo (.311/.379/.534, 2.5 WAR)
He doesn't have enough PA to qualify for the batting title, yet he's racked up seven-tenths of a win more than Mauer or NL runner-up Brian McCann, based partly on his excellent hitting and partly on having thrown out 53% of baserunners. He's coming up on 32 years old and has never posted an OBP better than .292, so it's impossible for me to believe the batting line is for real. But in a slightly off year for McCann -- and it was a slightly off second half of '09 too -- I think he's earned the nod.

First Base: Albert Pujols (.309/.425/.559, 2.6 WAR)
Joey Votto is having a phenomenal year, arguably as good as or better than Albert's, and deserves the spot on the team that I'm sure he'll get. But the starting job is Albert's for the foreseeable future, as it should be.

Second Base: Chase Utley (.260/.376/.461, 2.4 WAR)
His protracted recent slump is really dragging down his overall numbers, but they're still pretty great numbers for a Gold Glove-quality second baseman. Brandon Phillips is right on his tail, but Utley gets the legacy vote.

Third Base: Ryan Zimmerman (.302/.393/.568, 3.0 WAR)
Scott Rolen and David Wright have been great and deserve spots on the team, but Zimmerman is challenging Utley and Hanley for the title of best non-Pujols in the NL. If you don't already consider him one of the five or six best position players in baseball, there's a pretty good chance you will be by the end of this year.

Shortstop: Hanley Ramirez (.290/.374/.492, 2.1 WAR)
Flip a coin between Hanley and Troy Tulowitzki to determine who's been best this year, and Tulo is building up some long-term cache of his own, but Hanley still gets the edge based on past performance.

Outfield: Marlon Byrd (.329/.374/.536, 3.0 WAR), Josh Willingham (.279/.422/.507, 2.5 WAR), Andrew McCutchen (.314/.381/.479, 1.9 WAR)
This is a really tough call. Andres Torres leads all NL outfielders in WAR, but is 32 and a career .272/.362/.396 hitter in the minor leagues, but is now hitting .297/.398/.496 -- exactly the kind of fluke performance I don't really care to reward with an All-Star appearance. At least Byrd is a former top prospect who's established himself as a pretty good hitter. I picked Josh Willingham because I don't think anybody realizes how good this guy has been, but any of the Cardinals' outfielders (Colby Rasmus, Ryan Ludwick or Matt Holliday, probably in that order) are about as deserving. McCutchen does relatively poorly (10th) by FanGraphs WAR but very well by BBREF WAR, leading all NL outfielders. It's time to standardize this stuff. Another guy I should mention is Angel Pagan, who's been great, but falls in the same I-just-can't-buy-it category that Torres does. It amazes me that I'm not putting Jason Heyward in the lineup, but he's just not quite been at that level. He'd probably qualify for a bench spot, especially since there are approximately 78 of them per league available this year.

So that's that!

I was back in Minnesota this weekend, watching the Twins struggle against the NL East-leading Braves while the Tigers swept away the dreadful Pirates. On the out-of-town scoreboard, I noticed the Yankees were destroying the Astros, maybe the most hopeless team in baseball, while the Red Sox had to tackle the two time defending NL champ Phillies (and handled them pretty well, but still). So it occurred to me again why (first among many other reasons) I despise interleague play: it's really, really unfair.

 The Red Sox do have a significant disadvantage to the Yankees, one that will probably look bigger by the end of the year when the Phillies and Rockies start playing better. But the Rays get an even bigger boost than the Yankees. The big deal is the Rays and Yankees getting to play the Astros rather than the Rockies or Giants.

The Twins are at a slight disadvantage too, but neither of those divisions is anything close to what's going on in the West, where the Rangers have, by far, the easiest interleague schedule of any "contender." The main culprit is the Astros yet again, and the Rangers get them six times, while their chief competitors are stuck playing six games against two of the tougher teams in the weaker league. If the Rangers win the West by a couple games, there's a good chance that the nonsensical scheduling will have played a big part in that.

The NL is a little trickier:

Because there are two more teams in the NL, 12 of the 14 have to play another NL team during one otherwise-interleague series, so those 12 play just 15 interleague games rather than 18. The unlucky two this year are the Mets and Phillies, who need to play the full 18-game interleague schedule. This means that (a) the Mets' strength of schedule advantage vis-a-vis the Braves, if it existed at all, is probably pretty well erased; and (b) the Phillies really got screwed. Not only do they get the second-highest opponents' W% on the board, but they need to play an extra series against the stronger AL. It's already hurt them, as they've dropped four of six to the Red Sox.

The Reds have the second-easiest schedule. The Cards aren't technically that far behind, but replacing six games against Cleveland with three against the Angels and three against the Blue Jays sure feels like a big deal. It's kind of fun that the Reds and Padres, the two teams nobody expected to contend, get the biggest interleague breaks.

And that West...oy. The Dodgers have the toughest schedule here (at least before you consider the Phils' three extra games). They get their usual six tough games against the Angels, but then they get three more series against really good AL teams. And the thing is, it's not like there are any surprise teams on that list. Most people would've told you before the season started that the Angels, Red Sox, Yankees and Tigers, at least collectively, were going to be pretty good teams. Fate, or somebody, just had it in for the Dodgers this year. And schedules shouldn't just let fate (or somebody) have it in for the Dodgers (or anybody). Schedules should give teams at least roughly equal shots at proving themselves.

Don't blame Roy S. Johnson, Special to ESPN.com. He's just saying what everyone else is saying.

Johnson's article, "2010: Year of the Dominant Pitcher," asserts, as you might expect, that "By now, it should be clear that 2010 is the Year of the Dominant Pitcher." His evidence:

• Stephen Strasburg was really awesome on Tuesday;
• The Pirates' hitters were really bad always on Tuesday;
• Three no-hitters, two perfect games, and whatever it was Armando Galarraga did;
• There are currently 25 pitchers with ERAs under 3.00, when there were just 11 at the end of 2009; and
• Ubaldo Jimenez.

I can totally see where Johnson, and everybody, gets that idea. Three perfect games in one season is just insanely unlikely (John Dewan, at statoftheweek.com, puts the odds at 16,033-to-1; Tommy Bennett of Baseball Prospectus used a different method that suggested it was about forty times less likely than even that). Strasburg and Jimenez and Halladay are awesome. And scoring is lower right now than it was at the end of last year, or even through June of last year.

I just don't think anything we've seen so far proves anything. And I realize that that gives writers a lot less to write about, but I think it's true anyway.

David Pinto's excellent Day By Day database tells me that MLB hitters have put up these lines from opening day through June 9 of the last four years:

2007: .261/.331/.411
2008: .260/.332/.407
2009: .261/.335/.415.
2010: .259/.330/.408

I mean, I know that Johnson's point is that it's the year of the dominating pitcher, but the undercurrent is that scoring is way down everywhere, and sentiment there and elsewhere seems to be that it's the Year of the Pitcher, generally. And if that's the case, don't you think we'd see some meaningful difference between those numbers that actually lead to the scoring of runs? If there's an outlier there at all, it's last year, when scoring was actually up a bit early and went down late in the year. In those other years, what happened is about what I expect will happen this year; offense was down in the cold months, and went up in the warm months.

I also just don't think people understand how much this stuff can fluctuate, month to month, even across the entire league. Here's the scoring by month, in runs per game per team, figured from BBREF's MLB-wide splits:

A statistician might be able to tell you what that meant in some detail: all I can tell you is that those numbers are kind of all over the place, and as such, that I don't think we should be reading anything at all into two months plus nine days. 2010 has started out almost exactly like 2008 did, and 2009 started out with much more offense...but 2008 actually ended up with more runs per game than 2009 did. It's entirely possible that as the weather keeps warming up over the next several weeks, teams start scoring close to five runs a game, and the overall offensive levels approach or surpass 2008 and 2009.

What about all those dominant performances? Shutouts through June, 2007-09: 19, 21, 27. So far in 2010: 23. High, considering we've got three weeks left in June, but not crazy high. No guarantee we'll end up with more shutouts this year than last.There were 28 shutouts through June in 2006, too. This isn't hugely out of the ordinary.

And Johnson's point that there are 25 guys with a sub-3.00 ERA and only 11 at the end of 2009 is very flawed: it's obviously much easier/more likely to post a low ERA through 12 or 13 starts than through 30 or 33 of them. But at the same time, strangely, it might be his one point that sort of hits home. Going back to the Day by Day Database, it tells me there were 17 pitchers with a sub-3.00 ERA who qualified for the ERA title (roughly estimated) at this point last year...not 11, but actually closer to 11 than 25. In 2008 there were just eight sub-3s at this point (the same number they ended with), and in 2007, 15 (but ended with just one, Jake Peavy). So there are more individuals putting up low ERAs this year than there have been at this point in the last few...but as 2007 shows, that doesn't tell us anything about how they're going to end up.

The bottom line is that the evidence that this year is actually meaningfully different from the last (or the one before that, or the one before that) is pretty thin. It's possible that offense is down and pitching is up, but nobody can know that yet. There certainly have been a lot of really impressive and noteworthy pitching performances, an unusually high number of them, but the fact that a handful of memorable games have happened so far doesn't mean they're likely to keep happening, or that (as Johnson suggests) we'll see a lot more 2-1 and 1-0 games than we're used to. I think it's more likely that league scoring winds up just about exactly where it's been for the last three or four seasons.

Believe it or not (and maybe this is totally believable to you, but it seems crazy to me), it's been five years, eight months and seven days since there has been a Major League Baseball team known as the Montreal Expos. And while baseball doesn't typically take the toll on the human body that football and some other sports do, six years is still an awfully long time. Rosters turn over several times over in six years (especially true, I suppose, when the team six years ago went 67-95). Thirty-seven players played for the last Expos team in 2004 and had not yet turned 30 when that season ended; I count twenty-five of those thirty-seven -- including four starting position players and five of the six pitchers who started at least 15 games -- who have not played in the major leagues in 2010.

One thing this means is that at some point -- and probably a point sooner than you'd think -- there will be no players left in MLB who have played a home game in Montreal. So: who, at this point, is likely to be the last Expo (le dernier Expo, I think)?

It turns out that there are exactly 20 hitters and 20 pitchers who BBREF classifies as "active" and who once played for Les Expos de Montreal. Here they are, with their Expos statistics: